Chapter 96: The Husband’s Investigation

Wishing to avoid Yeon-chae’s gaze, Yoonwoo had retired early the previous night. When Yeon-chae returned from school and inquired, “Hyung, are you sleeping?”, Yoonwoo feigned slumber, only to genuinely fall asleep in the process.

By the time he finally opened his eyes, Yeon-chae had already departed for school. Yoonwoo remained curled on his side in bed, anxiously biting his nails as he sank into deep contemplation.

Though he considered confronting Yeon-chae directly, he found himself unwilling. The fact that he had read the messages, even if by accident, weighed heavily on his mind. He certainly didn’t want to be perceived as a jealous, possessive husband.

In that case, only one course of action remained: to verify it himself.

Yoonwoo glanced at the wall clock, noting the time: 2:30 PM. Since the meeting was scheduled for three, arriving at the café around 3:10 PM should allow him to catch Yeon-chae and their companion.

Donning a cap and mask to conceal his identity, Yoonwoo made his way toward the café.

He felt a pang of guilt towards Jungseo, who greeted him, but his eyes were fixated solely on Yeon-chae’s back, seated at a distant table. Across from him, a young male student chattered incessantly, a constant smile on his face. With his delicate and soft features, he appeared to be an Omega at first glance.

As Yeon-chae had his back to him, his expression remained hidden.

It had been fine, even good, that he had waited until Jungseo left before finally approaching Yeon-chae’s table. Yet, when Yeon-chae, instead of being pleased, narrowed his brows and demanded to know why he was there, Yoonwoo’s stomach churned with indignation.

Yoonwoo burst out, his voice sharp.

“Hey, is that what’s important right now?!”

“Then what is important?”

“You… why are you so brazen?!”

“No, Hyung, in your current state!”

Yeon-chae shot to his feet, his eye level rising by nearly a full hand-span. The sudden shift instantly made the atmosphere oppressive.

However, Yoonwoo bristled further, his voice escalating.

“So what if I’m in this state? Does my condition give you license to behave like this?!”

“What are you even talking about?”

The freshman, tugging at the hem of Yeon-chae’s hoodie, broke the taut tension between them. Yeon-chae flinched, startled, and glanced down at him.

Yoonwoo, too, glared intensely at the fingers idly toying with Yeon-chae’s hoodie.

Under the weight of their combined stares, the freshman offered an awkward laugh.

“Yeon-chae Hyung. Who is this person?”

“……”

For a moment, Yeon-chae’s face went blank, as if struck speechless. Then, as if suddenly regaining his senses, he glanced from the freshman clutching his clothing to Yoonwoo.

Yoonwoo, meanwhile, remained fixated on the freshman’s fingers, his eyes slightly reddened.

Yeon-chae’s face slowly drained of color.

“Hyung, you’re not, by any chance, getting the wrong idea, are you?”

“I am, actually.”

Yoonwoo mumbled, his voice thick with emotion. ‘Is this *not* a situation to be thinking strange thoughts?’

A heavy silence descended between the two. The freshman, his eyes darting nervously, once again tugged at Yeon-chae’s clothing.

Yoonwoo’s eyes narrowed to slits.

Yeon-chae’s expression was now genuinely flustered.

“Hyung, it’s not what you’re imagining.”

The freshman, whose obliviousness or deliberate provocation was unclear, piped up.

“Hello, but how do you know our Yeon-chae Hyung?”

Yoonwoo gritted his teeth, forcing a smile. Yeon-chae had never before witnessed such a spine-chilling expression on his face.

Yoonwoo, tugging at the other side of Yeon-chae’s shirt, retorted.

“Me? I’m his husband.”

“Oh, please. Don’t joke around.”

The freshman laughed, waving his hand dismissively. Yoonwoo, meanwhile, felt as though steam was about to erupt from his ears, threatening to make his head explode.

Fortunately, Yeon-chae, finally processing the situation, snapped back to reality. With frantic movements, he began rummaging through his bag, which lay haphazardly abandoned on an empty chair.

The freshman, staring at him with bewildered eyes, prattled on.

“Hyung. Is this person perhaps… stalking you?”

And just like that, without any preamble, he accused Yoonwoo of being a stalker. Yoonwoo could only manage a hollow, “Haha,” unable to form a coherent reply.

The louder Yoonwoo’s laughter grew, the more Yeon-chae’s fingers trembled as he fumbled through his bag.

Finally, Yeon-chae extracted a neatly folded piece of paper from his bag. He turned to the freshman and abruptly thrust it forward, prompting the young man to tilt his head, utterly bewildered.

Yeon-chae shook the paper, pressing him.

“Open it.”

“What is this?”

“Proof.”

“Huh?”

The hand that had been clutching Yeon-chae’s hoodie finally released its grip. With a dubious expression, the freshman unfolded the paper with both hands.

Yoonwoo, holding his breath, briskly brushed off the spot on Yeon-chae’s clothing where the freshman had been gripping. Then, he cast a quick glance at the paper the freshman was slowly unfolding.

The words etched onto the A4-sized paper were perfectly legible even from Yoonwoo’s vantage point.

`Marriage Certificate`

`Principal: Eun Yoonwoo`

`Spouse: Oh Yeon-chae`

The freshman’s face stiffened in real-time.

“Is this a genuine certificate? Not something you Photoshopped?”

“I have the original, too.”

With a rhetorical, “Want to see it?”, Yeon-chae rummaged through his bag once more, retrieving another certificate. This wasn’t a mere printout; it was the official marriage certificate, obtained from the community center, impeccably laminated.

The freshman’s eyes and mouth fell open in disbelief.

“Hey, you… why on earth do you laminate this and carry it everywhere?”

A flush of embarrassment crept over Yoonwoo, prompting him to glance around, checking if anyone was observing. Thankfully, there were no new patrons, and Jungseo had yet to return.

The freshman appeared utterly bewildered.

“I honestly had no idea. You said you didn’t have a girlfriend, then mentioned a husband, so I assumed it was a joke…”

It seemed he had taken Yeon-chae’s assertion of being a married man, at only twenty-one, as a jest. His face, as he murmured, “I’m sorry,” to Yoonwoo, was twisted into a sorrowful grimace.

“……Is that enough now?”

Yeon-chae turned to Yoonwoo, his face devoid of emotion. He seemed poised to interrogate him, much like a husband catching his heavily pregnant wife working a shift at a café.

However, Yoonwoo had no intention of letting the matter slide so subtly. Irrespective of the freshman’s ignorance regarding Yeon-chae’s marital status, there were still pressing questions Yoonwoo needed to ask Yeon-chae.

“No, it’s not enough.”

“Um… can I leave now?”

The freshman, his face abruptly uncomfortable, stammered out the question, but received no reply. Yeon-chae and Yoonwoo, lips pressed into thin lines, once again glared at each other with tense, cutting gazes.

“What’s not enough? Do you require further explanation?”

Yeon-chae asked, his brows furrowed. Yoonwoo let out a derisive snort.

“Of course I do. Why did you delete your messenger chat history?”

“What chat history?”

“Don’t try to change the subject. I… I saw everything.”

Even between spouses, confessing to having spied on messenger contents was mortifying, causing his lips to tremble. ‘It wasn’t as if I intended to see it. Your messenger was automatically logged in on the tablet PC I borrowed yesterday. Then a pop-up appeared. So I saw all the messages, but when I went back to re-read them, the chat window had vanished…’

The thought of explaining it all in such agonizing detail was too humiliating, so Yoonwoo kept his words concise.

“I saw you delete all the messenger conversations between you and him. If there was nothing to hide, why did you erase everything?”

With a look that seemed to ask, ‘Is that true?’ the freshman whipped his head around to Yeon-chae. A surge of expectation seemed to well up in his eyes.

Yoonwoo’s mood instantly plummeted.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t delete anything.”

Yeon-chae lied without a flicker of hesitation. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, there was no further inquiry about Yoonwoo having seen the messenger contents.

Dumbfounded, Yoonwoo let out a hollow laugh before extending a hand towards Yeon-chae. Yeon-chae raised a single eyebrow, asking, “What?”

“Give me your phone.”

“Okay.”

He was surprisingly compliant. Yoonwoo turned on the screen of the phone he had legitimately been handed, revealing the password input pad.

Yoonwoo glanced up at Yeon-chae, who, with slightly reddened earlobes, murmured.

“1004…”

It was Yoonwoo’s birthday.

He tapped the numbers, and the phone unlocked. He navigated to the messenger app, but even after a thorough scroll, the chat window with the freshman was nowhere to be found. Yoonwoo frowned, thrusting the phone into Yeon-chae’s face.

“Look. It’s gone. Why is only your chat with him missing?”

“Oh, that.”

Yeon-chae nodded indifferently. His casual reaction instantly incensed Yoonwoo.

“What do you mean, ‘Oh, that’? Did you delete it because you had something to hide?”

“What? No. Why would you say that?”

“Because there’s no other way to think about it.”

This time, Yeon-chae seemed genuinely surprised. He immediately smoothed his furrowed brow, took Yoonwoo’s elbow, and shook his head gently.

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?”

“I blocked him. So it wouldn’t be there, would it?”

“Uh… what?”

It was an unexpected answer. Yoonwoo’s mouth merely opened and closed in surprise. ‘Blocked? Why?’ In place of the speechless Yoonwoo, the one who had been blocked cried out.

“Hyung, you blocked me? Why?!”

“Hmm.”

Yeon-chae rolled his eyes, looking vexed.

The freshman fumbled in his pocket, pulled out his own phone, and hastily opened the messenger app, then the chat window. It seemed to be his conversation with Yeon-chae.

Yoonwoo craned his neck, huddling with the freshman to peer at the screen together.

[So, confirmed for 3 PM tomorrow? lolol]

The conversation began with a message the freshman had sent to Yeon-chae yesterday. The messages that followed were ones Yoonwoo hadn’t seen yesterday.

[Yep]

[lolol Okay. See you at Coffee Factory then?]

[Yep]

[I wish tomorrow would come sooner, Hyung.]

[Don’t be late, Hyung. I want to see you soon ♥]

[Stop spouting nonsense]

[lolol What did I do? I’m always sincere.]

[Don’t you have anything to do? Go to sleep.]

[Okay. You sleep early too ♥]

“……”

Yoonwoo was momentarily speechless at Yeon-chae’s somewhat unexpectedly blunt replies. The conversation continued a little further. However, they were all one-sided messages from the freshman, and the ‘1’ indicating unread messages remained stubbornly in place.

[Hyung~ I’m leaving. I came out early because I wanted to see you soon.]

[Hyung, I’ve arrived~. I’m by the window inside. Come quickly ♥]`[Are you not looking at your phone because you’re on your way, Hyung?]

[Hyung??????]

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