Touch Me and I Bite.
Eventually Jong-su finished cooking, and Da-yeon and I plated the food.
I ate the food Jong-su made, and honestly, it was so good I hated admitting it.
As I was pulling out chairs to sit in the yard in the middle of the night, Jong-su warned me.
"This area really isn't safe."
When I rolled my eyes around, Jong-su's head moved, following my gaze.
Guards filled every direction, and I caught glimpses of Team 5 and Team 7 chatting here and there.
"We'll be safe, won't we?"
"...It sure looks that way."
The cheeses Jong-su had on hand were better quality than I'd expected.
When I brought the cheese, Da-yeon pulled out the wine stocked in the campervan, and we enjoyed the cheese and wine together.
And naturally, we didn't forget to take pictures.
I could feel several stares coming from the direction of the house Jong-su was living in, but the sheer number of guards kept them from actually approaching.
Da-yeon was starting to laugh more, maybe feeling the alcohol kicking in.
"Hey, Jong-su~ what kind of work do you do at the factory?"
"Me? Mostly washing dishes. The detergent there is so harsh it even melts rubber gloves."
"F-for real?"
"Look at my fingers."
Before he left Australia, Jong-su's hands had been the typical young master's hands that had never seen a day of hard work.
Now his fingertips were badly cracked, and his nails were in poor condition too.
It was a sight that seemed to show just how much he'd been struggling.
Da-yeon wasn't exactly drunk, but the atmosphere was unexpectedly good, and she seemed drunk on it.
I set sausages onto the grill plate where the flames were rising.
Scary stories are the unwritten rule for this kind of mood, but Da-yeon would flip out, so I decided to hold off for now.
Jong-su looked at me and asked if I wasn't drinking, so I shook my head lightly.
"Did you really come to Australia for romance?"
"Nope."
""Then why?""
Jong-su had apparently had some wine before—his hand movements were practiced, giving the glass a light breathing before he wet his throat.
A slightly pensive look.
That look was, yeah... the sentimental look he was always running his mouth about.
"What I had... was actually nothing at all, you know?"
"Isn't that a lot you've got?"
"All of it belongs to my parents."
Maybe he intended to talk about something deeper than expected, because he slowly opened his mouth with a serious expression.
"I found out there wasn't a single thing I was better at than other people."
Jong-su sliced the cheese thinly with a knife and laid it onto a cracker.
"When I was a kid, I was seriously popular with girls."
"Bullshit."
"Pfft."
Ignoring my comment, Jong-su held up the cracker and looked lost in thought for a moment.
Well, if he's that serious, I might as well listen.
"I was a total social butterfly, you know~ But, I had this friend I was seriously close with ever since we were little, and that guy was better at absolutely everything than me, and on top of that, he was even good-looking."
"What, did he die or something?"
At my words, Han Jong-su flinched as if he'd frozen up, his hand holding the wine glass trembling faintly.
Seeing that, Da-yeon shot me a glare as if demanding to know why I'd said that.
"......"
"...Sorry."
After stiffening for a moment, Han Jong-su ultimately gave a faint smile.
"Just because I was a little well-off, the kids around me... I guess they were jealous of my friend or something, because they bullied him a lot. But I didn't know a thing about it."
School violence...
I'd thought there had to be a reason Han Jong-su ended up with such a unique set of values.
If he'd started to feel guilt after the person he was closest to took his own life, he'd have needed a reason to justify his own defense mechanism, and it probably didn't take him long to conclude that reason was 'money.'
With that one thought, I could imagine just how much Jong-su had been trapping himself.
Jong-su let out a sigh and stared at his wine glass.
"In the end, my friend..."
Jong-su took a sip of his wine and then spoke, his words coming with difficulty.
"Beat the ever-loving shit out of the kids who bullied him."
""....?""
"Turned out he was a fucking amazing fighter. Dude practically flew around. After that, he ended up being the top dog."
"...You said he died."
"When did I say that. Don't go killing off my friend."
Maybe it was because I couldn't adjust to Han Jong-su's sudden U-turn, but after spacing out for a moment, a sudden surge of rage hit me.
"Fine. I'll kill you first."
When I lunged at him, Da-yeon frantically held me back.
"Then why the fuck did you flinch earlier?"
"I had to piss."
Wow... this little shit...
"Anyway, that day I went home, and the building manager greeted me, the housekeeper greeted me, and that same ordinary scene just felt awkward."
Han Jong-su, that bastard, started putting on his lost-in-thought face again.
"At that moment, I thought of that friend, and I started to wonder... if it weren't for my parents, hadn't I just stolen the place that was meant to be his?"
Well, the direction is different, but I get it.
Because Da-yeon and I are both kids from rich families too.
"A girlfriend I dated a long time ago—I felt like she'd only approached me because she saw my family, not me. So, whenever a pretty woman comes near me, it feels fake and makes me a little... wary, I guess?"
A long time ago, In-su told me Jong-su had a phobia of beautiful women. Now I see there was a reason for it.
"Then date a woman richer than you."
"....."
After hearing my words, Han Jong-su suddenly gave Da-yeon and me a deeply meaningful stare, so I poked him in the eye without a moment's hesitation.
"Ghiaaaaaah!!!"
"Give Da-yeon that kind of shitty look one more time and see what happens."
"Are you insane!?"
"If I hadn't skipped nail care yesterday, you'd be straight-up blind right now. Shame."
Still, Da-yeon must have felt there was a lot to learn from Jong-su, because she listened intently to him the whole time.
Da-yeon no longer looked at Tae-oh with the eyes of someone looking at her first love.
She just looked at him the way you look at a really close friend.
Even so, Da-yeon was someone who did say she wanted to try having a boyfriend.
If Da-yeon ever started dating someone, it'd probably be a bigger shock than when Aunt Ji-su announced she was dating Uncle Yoo Su-a...
Time passed, and Han Jong-su went inside his own house to sleep.
Da-yeon and I settled down to sleep in the campervan.
The next day, Jong-su joined us for a walk around the area.
I could understand what he meant about the security being bad—the guards looked incredibly busy in the distance.
"Seriously, thank you guys for coming. You're the only friends I've seen since I got to Australia."
"You just made the wrong friends."
"Wrong friends, my ass. Everyone's just busy living their lives."
Da-yeon and I arrived at the campervan and gradually got ready to head home.
Han Jong-su came out to see us off.
"When are you coming back to Korea?"
"Probably in four months?"
"I feel like seeing you again will give me cancer, so let's meet in four months. I'll treat you to something seriously over-the-top then."
"Bye! I sent you the money I owed, including up to today~"
I waved my hand vaguely, and Da-yeon stuck her face out the window to say goodbye.
When we got home, Dad latched onto me again because we'd been apart for another day.
"You do know I'm an adult, right?"
"Sure do~"
Looking at Dad, who was clearly intent on sticking to my side like glue for a long while, I decided to humor him.
After thinking for about one second about what to do, I remembered a Neotube video I'd watched yesterday and spoke up to Dad.
"Dad, wanna make soy-marinated shrimp together?"
"Marinated shrimp? You want some?"
"Yeah."
He probably thought, 'We could just buy it, why bother making it?' but when I showed him the video I'd seen yesterday, he nodded.
Dad and I made some calls to find fresh king tiger prawns and then headed to Incheon.
Being rich means your execution is top-notch—we arrived in Incheon, carefully packed up twenty enormous prawns, and brought them home.
"Dad, I'm already tired?"
"I did the driving, so you really shouldn't be."
"Should we sleep just a little and then do it?"
"....."
"That... that was a lie... Oh, oh but Daddy really wants to do it too, you know? I'll get everything ready."
Since freshness is everything in marinating, I personally handled the live tiger prawns.
"Whoa... look at this belly, look. It's seriously huge."
Dad boiled the soy sauce base and watched me handle the shrimp.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
The people who'd come to visit were Aunt Ji-su and actor Yoo Su-a.
"Oh? What brings you here?"
Actor Yoo Su-a must drink with Dad often, because they'd gotten really close by now.
I stopped the prep work and headed to the living room where Dad was.
"Hello~"
"We've decided to get married, so here's our wedding invitation."
Actor Yoo Su-a handed over the invitation with both hands.
I felt a sense of betrayal as I looked at Aunt Ji-su.
"Whoa!? Auntie! What's this? Without even telling me?"
"We're getting ma~rried~"
"What about the baby?"
"".....""
"So that'd be coming out in ten months?"
Dad shot me a sharp look and poked me in the side.
"Congratulations. Since you came in person, I'm guessing the wedding will be small?"
""Yes!""
"I'll have to sing a congratulatory song for you, then~"
"That's exactly why we came~"
At Aunt Ji-su's characteristically unfiltered response, Dad and I both smiled.
After school ended, Da-yeon and I headed to the JSM practice room for her dance practice.
I offered Yoon-seo to join too, but she shook her head with a slightly bitter expression.
Yoon-seo said she had to study, but something about her expression bothered me.
Still, I left Yoon-seo alone, figuring she'd sort it out on her own.
"Like this, flicking the board like you're bouncing off it. Tup."
"Like this?"
"No."
Thanks to Da-yeon being much more of a klutz than I'd imagined, my dance lesson went on a lot longer.
"I've got some soy-marinated shrimp I made at home. Wanna eat it together? It's ready to open today."
"Really? Of course~"
The exhausted Da-yeon sat in the chair, drinking water and smiling.
At my house, not only Da-yeon, but Lee Jin-seok and Kim Seon-hwa also joined us, and we all enjoyed the king tiger soy-marinated prawns together.
We each picked up a prawn bigger than my face and used scissors to cut it segment by segment as we ate.
It was salty, but the sweet inner flesh matched the prawn's size, and the springy, chewy chunks that clung to your teeth and pushed back were overwhelmingly more delicious than ordinary marinated shrimp.
"Wow..."
I'd wanted to try it ever since I watched that Neotube video, and it really was delicious.
"Si-yoon, you made this?"
"No, Dad seasoned the soy sauce base!"
"It's incredibly good~"
The adults seemed to have a lot to talk about, so Da-yeon and I headed over to Da-yeon's house and played Debtor's Forest.
Before we knew it, exam period was approaching again, and I changed clothes for Aunt Ji-su's upcoming wedding.
Since I had to go up on stage and sing, I dressed as elegantly as possible, then got into the car with Dad, who was wearing a suit, and we set off.
"Isn't this your first time going to a wedding?"
"It is."
The moment we sat down, I took out some snacks, and Dad stared at me.
"Sweetie?"
"Yeah?"
"You know you've been putting on weight lately, right?"
"....."
I was fully aware that a pinch of belly fat had appeared where there was none since high school, so I put the snack I'd picked up back down.
Me, with belly fat...
I had been holding back on ab exercises because they thicken my waist, but it seems like I'll have to do them to some extent again.
As I sat there touching my belly fat for a moment, gauging the situation, Dad smiled.
"Daddy thinks you're cute with a little belly~"
"What are you talking about. Everyone would like it, not just you. I'm just the one who won't allow it."
"Is that so...?"
One might think that standing out more than the bride, the star of the show, would be a nuisance at the wedding hall.
But even if age is undefeated, Aunt Ji-su's looks didn't lose to mine.
Especially Aunt Ji-su in a pure white dress—she made it clear that she wasn't mentioned as one of Korea's top-tier beauties for nothing.
"Senior!"
"Wow~ you're so incredibly pretty!"
"Haha, thank you! Si-yoon~ Hello~"
Thinking of myself as especially cool, I raised my right hand.
Aunt Ji-eun appeared too, and she chatted with Dad for quite a while.
Still, I'd thought Aunt Ji-eun would be the one getting married first...
Aunt Ji-eun had come with her own boyfriend.
Someone poked me in the back from behind.
When I turned around, all the Dreaming members were there, from Aunt Yua to Aunt Rije.
The Dreaming aunties, who had already finished talking with Aunt Ji-su, sat down and started chattering with me.
From what I heard last time, this wedding was supposedly going to be a small affair. And yet, the prominence of the bride's acquaintances and the groom's acquaintances was anything but small.
The groom's side included actors whose stock was currently the highest, and the bride's side included people with an overwhelming presence in the Korean entertainment industry.
I spotted someone who'd come in from a distance, so I left the Dreaming aunties and moved.
"Uncle Il-seong!"
Actor Song Il-seong.
He's getting on in years now, and maybe because he no longer does production work...
His frame was still the same, but the muscles that used to fill my memories had shrunk considerably.
And Han Seo-jun.
After being the male lead in My Love Was a Gumiho, when the drama blew up, he thought it was all thanks to him and his star syndrome got really bad.
He used to be an idol, so his fanbase is pretty thick, but he got cut from JSM.
I heard it was because there were a lot of bad rumors going around.
Rumor has it he messed with a JSM trainee...
Currently serving as the face of his current agency, Han Seo-jun consoles himself by insisting the only reason he has no work is because the jobs aren't up to his level.
I knew what kind of guy he was from the moment he first tried to mess with me.
But it was a good day, so I shook his hand and greeted him.
Looking at the way that little shit's eyes were on me, though, I doubt he's come to his senses.
He's good-looking and was pretty decent at acting. If he just sat still, he'd make it on his own, but...
He's a Han Seo-jun who doesn't know how to use that face.