Chapter 85: A Taste of Regret

The samgyeopsal gimbap possessed an utterly indescribable flavor.

It was only after Yoonwoo had gathered several burst gimbap rolls and spent a considerable time feeding them to Yeon-chae that the true nature of their taste dawned on him. Yeon-chae, opening his mouth like a fledgling bird with each spoonful, was so endearing that Yoonwoo had fed him nearly two full rows before finally putting a single gimbap roll into his own mouth.

He barely had time to chew before he was sprinting towards the bathroom.

“Ugh… ugh. Blech…”

“Hyung, Hyung. Are you alright? Should we go to the hospital? Oh, what are we going to do?”

“I-I’m fine. Ugh, ugh.”

“This won’t do. Let me carry you. Let’s go to the hospital.”

“N-no. I’ll be fine if I rest a bit…”

Yoonwoo waved away Yeon-chae’s concerns, his hand still clinging to the toilet bowl. It was Yeon-chae who had consumed nearly all of the ghastly gimbap, yet Yoonwoo, who had only taken a single bite, was now retching up an empty stomach.

The sheer absurdity of the situation elicited a hollow, disbelieving laugh from him.

Yeon-chae squatted beside the toilet and gently stroked Yoonwoo’s back. His usually bright face was already contorted into a mournful grimace.

“It looks like your morning sickness has flared up again.”

“Ah, I suppose so. I’d been perfectly fine until now, but I must have eaten something too peculiar, and the baby simply didn’t approve.”

“…It wasn’t peculiar. It was, uh, delicious…”

“…”

Yeon-chae slowly released his pheromones. A refreshing floral scent began to diffuse, displacing the nauseating taste of the gimbap and settling Yoonwoo’s turbulent stomach.

Yoonwoo let out a long sigh and opened his tightly closed eyes. Tears, born of the painful retching, traced paths down his cheeks from the corners of his eyes.

Yeon-chae cradled Yoonwoo’s cheeks in both hands, his thumbs gently brushing away the lingering tears. With each touch of warmth, Yoonwoo’s chest fluttered. He couldn’t discern if the sensation stemmed from his morning sickness or from a delightful tickle in his chest, sending his emotions into a delightful whirl.

“You should have told me if you didn’t want to eat it. Why on earth did you finish it all?”

Yoonwoo mumbled in a dejected voice. Yeon-chae’s eyes widened in a flicker of surprise, only to quickly lower his lids. His long, thick eyelashes trembled faintly.

“I didn’t dislike it.”

“You don’t have to lie…”

“It’s not a lie.”

The large hand that had dried his damp cheeks now moved to caress Yoonwoo’s lips. Having spent the entire day retching with nothing to eat, sour stomach acid, rather than food, now smudged Yeon-chae’s pale hand.

Yoonwoo gazed at that hand, then spoke with a mournful sigh.

“It *is* a lie. I tasted it myself. It was truly dreadful.”

“Hmm… not that.”

“Huh?”

“I didn’t dislike it. Eating the gimbap that Hyung fed me.”

Yeon-chae still had his head bowed. Beyond his rounded head, the tips of his ears, just visible, were flushed crimson.

“…I liked it.”

A slow blush spread across his pale nape as well. Yoonwoo was momentarily lost for words, his mind reeling, as he slowly blinked his eyelids open and shut. Yeon-chae’s ear tips and nape were still flushed.

“Huh…?”

“Hyung, but are you sure we don’t need to go to the hospital? Just in case, let’s go together.”

Yoonwoo’s strained voice overlapped with Yeon-chae’s anxious tone.

“Huh? No, I’m fine now. It must have just been morning sickness.”

“Then go inside and rest. I’ll take you to bed.”

“Uh-huh…”

Yoonwoo, having missed his moment, lost the opportunity to converse further with Yeon-chae, his bewildered replies stumbling out. He allowed Yeon-chae to assist him for the short distance to the master bedroom, where he finally lay down on the bed.

Yeon-chae pulled the down comforter up to Yoonwoo’s chin.

Only after hearing the soft click of the bedroom light switch and Yeon-chae’s footsteps retreating did tears sting Yoonwoo’s eyes, born of regret and a poignant sense of missed opportunity. He had never imagined such a moment would arise while he was clutching the toilet bowl, retching.

Still, he should have pressed the issue. Especially when Yeon-chae had claimed to ‘like it,’ despite being fed that bio-bomb of a gimbap.

Yoonwoo pulled the down comforter over his head. The words he had yearned to speak then churned in his mouth, a rough, unspoken plea.

‘Yeon-chae. Do you… perhaps like me?’

‘Because I like you…’

One should live true to their nature. Yesterday, Yoonwoo had spent the entire day cooking without a proper meal, only to end up vomiting stomach acid along with the single gimbap roll he had finally managed to eat. All of this was the consequence of him attempting something entirely out of character.

He must have been utterly exhausted, for he had fallen into a deep, almost unconscious sleep. When the clamorous ringing of the doorbell finally roused him, he opened his eyes to find that it was already late morning.

Yoonwoo struggled to pry open his swollen eyelids, which seemed stubbornly glued shut.

As he stumbled towards the entrance, a quick glance at the wall clock revealed it was five minutes to noon. Yeon-chae seemed to have already gone to school. The house was completely quiet, save for the persistent, clamorous ringing of the doorbell. Standing before the front door, Yoonwoo narrowed his brow and glared at it.

An ominous premonition stirred within him.

Yoonwoo opened his mouth reluctantly.

“Who is it?”

“Jae-su—! Ah, what was his name? Yoon… Yoonwoo! Yoonwoo, open the door! It’s me, Go Kevin!”

“…”

He really didn’t want to open it. Yoonwoo simply clamped his mouth shut, feigning absence.

As Yoonwoo dithered, however, the unwelcome guest outside began to pound on the front door with his fist. He worried that he would earn the displeasure of his neighbors, whom he hadn’t even properly greeted yet. Yoonwoo, left with no other choice, asked in a tone laced with reluctance.

“Why? Yeon-chae isn’t home!”

“Oh, I know that! Just open the door for a second. You’re sick, aren’t you?”

“What? I’m not sick?”

“I know all about you throwing up and crying! They said you got that way from eating something odd!”

“How did you even know that…? And for your information, it wasn’t ‘odd’.”

While it was peculiar, he certainly didn’t want to hear it from Kevin of all people. No matter how bizarre Yoonwoo’s samgyeopsal gimbap might have been, it was undoubtedly more ‘normal’ than Kevin himself.

Unable to voice that thought, Yoonwoo let out a heavy sigh and unlatched the front door. Kevin promptly slipped inside, closed the door behind him, and beamed.

“Haven’t you gone to America yet?”

Yoonwoo asked sourly. Whether Kevin genuinely failed to notice the lack of welcome or merely feigned ignorance (Yoonwoo suspected the former with 95% certainty), he simply nodded and deposited something weighty into Yoonwoo’s arms.

Yoonwoo’s gaze instinctively dropped to the object in his arms.

It was an insulated lunchbox.

“What is this?”

“Yeon-chae had an early class this morning, so he couldn’t make breakfast. He said you’d have nothing to eat when you woke up.”

“So?”

“Abalone porridge! I made abalone porridge!”

“Abalone porridge…?”

Yoonwoo looked down at the insulated lunchbox with suspicious eyes. While Yoonwoo was hardly in a position to critique others’ cooking, Kevin’s abalone porridge struck him as particularly dubious.

Did he even know what abalone was? A profound unease settled over Yoonwoo, imagining Kevin presenting something inedible, refusing to touch it himself, and then attempting to spoon-feed it solely to him.

Yet, he couldn’t simply ignore Kevin’s face, radiant with expectation, as if he were hoping for effusive praise. Yoonwoo let out a low groan, then carried the insulated lunchbox towards the living room. Kevin, as if wagging an invisible tail with frantic delight, trailed eagerly behind Yoonwoo.

He sat on the sofa and opened the lunchbox. Warm steam wafted up, gently caressing his cheeks. Yoonwoo’s eyes widened as he looked down at the abalone porridge.

To his surprise, a rich, savory aroma drifted from it. The abalone pieces, nestled among the glossy, pale rice grains, appeared surprisingly substantial. Kevin tapped impatiently on Yoonwoo’s thigh, urging him on.

“Go on, try it! Oh, should I feed it to you? Like this, I’ll blow on it to cool it down a bit, then…”

“No, thank you.”

He swiftly snatched the spoon from Kevin’s hand, who had indeed generously scooped a spoonful of abalone porridge and begun to blow on it. Not only was Kevin’s cooking enough of a concern, but Yoonwoo had absolutely no desire to be spoon-fed by him.

Reluctantly, he took the spoon, glaring alternately at the abalone porridge and Kevin. It defied Yoonwoo’s common sense why his rival would go to such lengths to be kind. He was intensely curious about the hidden agenda behind that guileless expression, yet Kevin simply appeared to be utterly devoid of ulterior motives.

Yoonwoo sighed heavily, took a bite of the abalone porridge, and swallowed.

“How is it? How is it?”

“…”

“Is it delicious? It is, isn’t it! An incredible taste! Hah, you don’t need to thank me. But a little praise wouldn’t hurt!”

“Ha…”

It was, infuriatingly, delicious. Yoonwoo was genuinely annoyed.

“Did you really make this yourself?”

Yoonwoo asked suspiciously. Kevin nodded so vigorously it seemed his head might snap off.

“Yep! I did it. Me, me!”

His head didn’t actually break.

Yoonwoo, making no effort to conceal his irritation, simply continued to scoop and eat the abalone porridge, his head bowed as if to bury his nose in the lunchbox. His stomach, empty from a day of fasting and immediate sleep after vomiting, eagerly absorbed the abalone porridge with fierce abandon, heedless of its owner’s conflicted feelings.

Kevin’s boisterous chattering beside him faded into a mere background hum.

“Wow, you’re really digging in! I’m an amazing cook, aren’t I? Even a grub has its rolling *talent*, right?”

“It’s ‘talent,’ not ‘theme.’ Though you *are* a grub.”

“Oh, oh. That’s it! Hahahahaha. Thanks! I get that a lot!”

“What exactly are you thankful for…? Ha… Never mind.”

Yoonwoo offered a vague affirmation in a subdued voice. Kevin, emboldened, bounced around with even greater fervor. The abalone porridge was delicious, but Kevin’s incessant noise was starting to give him a headache.

After a prolonged period of bouncing, Kevin finally calmed down, fiddling with his fingers and twisting his body. Yoonwoo raised an eyebrow.

“Why? Do you have something to say?”

“Mm-hmm. How did you know?”

“Your whole body is… What is it?”

“But you know, Jae-su, actually, that abalone porridge wasn’t made by me, but by Yeon…”

Just then, the numeric keypad at the entrance beeped. Yoonwoo and Kevin simultaneously turned their heads towards the front door.

The rapidly pressed numbers kept being incorrect, causing several warning beeps, but the door wouldn’t open. His heart pounded with alarm, wondering if a thief had broken in in broad daylight. Yoonwoo jumped up, then glanced at Kevin, who clumsily rose beside him. Surely, with those arms, he could easily take down a thief?

Sensing Yoonwoo’s gaze, Kevin quickly darted behind him, burying his face in Yoonwoo’s back and whimpering, despite his large frame being impossible to hide.

“A thief? Oh… what do we do? Ugh, I’m so scared!”

“Ah, damn…”

A curse almost slipped out. *Yeon-chae, why on earth is this guy your first love? Why?!*