Chapter 6: Poles Apart

As he examined the price sticker, muttering “ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand…”, Lee Do-kyung’s eyes gradually widened.

The eerie sensation, like the pupil of Satan opening, made the shaggy-haired boy take another step back.

His back hit the wall—there was no further retreat.

“Hurry up and deposit it or send it!

I have to get to my academy now!”

“Tsk, you’re so noisy.

Fine, fine.”

After transferring 1.5 million won on the spot, Lee Do-kyung finally received the paper bag.

Opening it to take a cursory look inside, he bit down on a cigarette with mixed feelings.

“Hey, you lunatic, do you like the Kitty Corps?

Crazy…”

A friend of his, laughing and holding his stomach, propped his chin on Do-kyung’s shoulder.

Do-kyung nodded vaguely, blowing out cigarette smoke.

He remembered Seon Woo-min’s family finances hadn’t been comfortable.

Was he actually planning to buy this with his own money?

Seventy thousand won for a palm-sized toy cat?

If the “financial status” part of the setting he knew hadn’t changed, then Seon Woo-min must like this cat Mung Bean very, very much.

***

Through the bathroom door, open about a handspan, a humming tune drifted out.

Naked, Lee Do-kyung was applying shaving foam in the bathroom.

As he drew the razor down, scraping off the foam, his sharp jawline gradually emerged.

Even by his own estimation, it was a beauty rivaling a Greek sculpture.

Do-kyung angled his clean-shaven face this way and that in the wall mirror.

“…Damn, that’s handsome.”

Who’s an ‘ahjussi’?

Huh?

That little bastard kid.

If your eyesight’s bad, wear glasses.

Tsking, Lee Do-kyung splashed water on his face, satisfied.

***

“I’ll handle this, so go take care of the customers.”

Seon Woo-min gestured with his eyes toward the group of office workers entering the café, then lowered a sack of coffee beans from the small truck’s cargo bed.

The female employee said “Got it” and ran to the counter.

Usually, delivery days were scheduled when the male staff was working, but Bae Jun-ho had a sudden schedule change, leaving him to handle the transport alone.

The owner had tried to help, but he was only fussy and not much assistance, so Woo-min sent him back inside.

The back of Seon Woo-min’s navy shirt was already damp with sweat as he moved the sacks loaded on a cart toward the roasting room.

“…?”

When the sack slung over his shoulder suddenly felt lighter, Woo-min immediately looked back.

The person relieving the weight was the pierced man, holding the corner of the sack.

When their eyes met, the man smiled faintly.

Seon Woo-min asked with a blank expression.

“What are you doing, sir?”

Woo-min tugged again at the sack grasped by the man’s hand, which bore a small tattoo.

It didn’t budge.

As he pulled again, the veins stood out on Woo-min’s forehead.

“I’m sorry, but could you please take your hand off?”

“Let me help you.”

“Why?”

Seon Woo-min’s genuinely questioning “Why” made Lee Do-kyung flinch.

Even though he knew Woo-min’s personality drew a sharp line between public and private, he just couldn’t get used to that cold gaze and curt tone.

Well, with that attitude, he’s definitely my Woo-min.

Definitely Seon Woo-min.

“Why?

It’s heavy, isn’t it?”

“It’s heavy, but you don’t have to help.

This is work for the café staff.”

The remark clearly drew the line: you’re a customer, I’m an employee here.

Seon Woo-min generally didn’t engage in small talk with customers, nor did he readily join in the jokes exchanged with customers that were meant to be overheard.

That was also the owner’s café policy: “Be friendly, but not intimate.”

It was an added stroke of luck that the policy matched Woo-min’s personality.

“Ah, right.”

Looking deflated, Lee Do-kyung stepped back.

He had thought to help carry the sacks, casually start a conversation, steer the topic toward the Invincible Power Kitty Corps, and then hand over the Mung Bean figure.

But with Woo-min, he couldn’t even get a needle’s tip in.

If he abruptly produced the figure, he risked being blocked even more thoroughly than now.

Yeah, well.

This was part of why he liked him.

He remembered the moment when the iron-walled Seon Woo-min had opened his body and heart and accepted him.

The way he had allowed only Do-kyung, easily crumbling and surrendering to him.

Seon Woo-min had made him feel as if the only man in the world was Lee Do-kyung.

Since Do-kyung was the sole man existing for Woo-min, he naturally had no choice but to be the best.

Lee Do-kyung dragged the sacks in the truck bed to the edge for easier unloading, silently watched Woo-min for a moment, then went back inside the café.

Seon Woo-min’s puzzled gaze followed his back.

“Here, sir.

Have this.”

“What’s this?”

Lee Do-kyung, who had been focusing on work with his laptop screen open, looked alternately at the iced tea placed on the table and at Woo-min.

The Mung Bean figure tucked in his backpack, which he’d tossed carelessly on the chair, was on his mind.

“You helped me earlier.

Thank you.”

Seon Woo-min put on his usual professional smile.

Thanks to this man, the work had gone much easier, so he couldn’t just accept help and pretend nothing happened.

It wouldn’t be balanced if one side accumulated only pluses or only minuses.

“Ah, it was nothing.”

“Well then, enjoy.”

With a slight nod, Seon Woo-min took the tray and returned to the counter.

The scent of the pierced man’s cologne pricked at his nose.

Now and then, as he moved through the hall, Woo-min overheard the pierced man talking with his friends.

He was extremely particular about fashion—changing his shoelace color right before leaving if he didn’t like it, spending over thirty minutes choosing accessories.

He didn’t even carry his phone because he disliked bulging coat pockets, and he absolutely detested having to add or remove anything when he went out in a perfect outfit.

And Seon Woo-min found none of it acceptable.

A flashy male who loved to preen.

That summarized the pierced man in a word.

And that was far from Woo-min’s taste.

As far apart as if Woo-min were in Antarctica, he would be at the North Pole.

As far apart as if Woo-min were Earth, he would be a star located at least 120 light-years away, the farthest point from Earth.

First of all, his appearance itself was that of a thug, the kind Woo-min disliked.

In old terms, he might be called a gisaeng’s brother—a flashy, foppish man.

Even when neatly groomed, his rough-looking face just barely managed to appear decent, and it was pierced in two places that drew the eye.

Not to mention the chain running from one earlobe to the other; on days when he wore rings threaded all along his outer ear, he looked like a spiral-bound notebook.

The rings filling his fingers without a single gap brought to mind Xerxes from the movie *300*.

He’d been disgusted even while watching the film, never expecting to see such a thing in real life.

He was genuinely grateful the man didn’t wear nail polish.

The cologne was particularly overpowering.

At first, he’d wondered if he’d accidentally spilled the bottle.

The spot where the pierced man had sat always lingered with a heavy musk scent, so even on days they didn’t cross paths, Woo-min could tell he’d been there.

But more than anything, it was the blue-grey contact lenses.

Those lenses were what made Woo-min firmly shut his heart.

He could overlook the dressing up and adornment, but the aesthetic sense—the choice to wear lenses of such a color—simply did not align with his own.

It clearly revealed the image this man wanted to project, and that “image” was not the beauty Seon Woo-min sought.

The intense allure the pierced man radiated from his entire body originated from those blue-grey eyes—and the fact that he had momentarily felt something akin to longing, a liking, toward those eyes, simultaneously real and fake, made Woo-min uncomfortable.

“…?”

Seon Woo-min, who had been scanning the playlist of Baekseok Coffee, which mainly featured 1960s Korean pop songs, glanced over the laptop screen.

He’d felt the gaze of the pierced man, sitting at his table, staring intently this way.

His gaze was so intensely goal-oriented that it was hard to believe it came from such a sloppy man; occasionally, it sent small goosebumps up Woo-min’s arms.

Sometimes their eyes met like this.

The pierced man clearly carried an air of having something to say, yet he never pushed further.

Returning his attention to the laptop screen, Seon Woo-min quickly forgot about the pierced man and played Shin Jung-hyeon’s “Beautiful Woman.”

He thought of the Mung Bean figure left on the goods shop shelf, roughly hugged in the middle schooler’s arms.

Was that Mung Bean doing well, in that boy’s house—the one who said his favorite was Cherry?

***

After dinner accompanied by drinks with members of his climbing club, Lee Do-kyung returned home, dragged his slippers across the foyer with sluggish steps.

Climbing up and down steep inclines, gripping stones the size of a baby’s fist, had left his knuckles tingling and his forearms feeling like they were about to burst.

Thanks to the system air conditioner he’d turned on in advance via his phone, cool air flowed through the house.

Seon Woo-min had been flabbergasted that he ran the AC even in October.

Why do you live in a different season all by yourself?

Can’t you just live normally? he’d said.

Smirking to himself, Lee Do-kyung headed to the bathroom.

The Seon Woo-min back then and the Seon Woo-min now were different, yet they were the same person.

Above all, he was alive.

That fact alone, even amid the chaos where he couldn’t define what was happening, drove him forward.

After showering, Lee Do-kyung stepped into his office room, then stopped short.

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