MTLNOVEL 25.
25.
If Choi Jae-won had acted according to his natural inclination, he would have flatly refused without hesitation. That would have been right, but…
“Young master, please!”
Seeing Secretary Jang’s pleading face behind his grandfather, silently mouthing words and rubbing his hands together, and the piles of luggage next to Secretary Jang. And above all else…
“Why have you lost so much weight? After all the money your grandfather has donated to the Center, don’t tell me those bastards have been starving my precious grandson? No, right?”
Though his grandfather’s rough temperament remained unchanged as if he’d seen him just yesterday, his white hair had noticeably increased and his shoulders had become more hunched. Choi Jae-won had been raised with too much love and care to brush away the elderly man’s touch with a simple “no thanks.” In fact, when he first heard that this formidable man had collapsed from shock after his unilateral declaration to join the Center, how guilty he had felt.
“Fine. Follow me this way. But remember, I share this residence with my pair, so you can only see my room when we get in. Understood?”
“Yes, I got it. I got it! Look at you, becoming so nagging while I haven’t seen you, tsk.”
Secretary Jang followed the two of them out of the visiting room, groaning under the mountain of luggage. The distance from the visiting room near the main entrance to the residence building inside would be quite far, and the old man’s stubbornness would only make others suffer unnecessarily. Choi Jae-won moved much more slowly than usual, matching his grandfather’s pace with his cane. On the way, he quickly sent a message on his phone, and Ryu Ho-yeon promptly sent back an agreeable response.
♡Ho-yeon hyung♡ [ooo]
Usually, Ryu Ho-yeon would either ignore his messages completely or just respond with a single “ㅇ” or “ㄴ,” but today he had sent three “ㅇ”s. Through love-clouded eyes, Choi Jae-won interpreted the middle of Ryu Ho-yeon’s casually typed “ㅇ”s as a heart symbol. Drinking self-made kimchi soup without the server’s intention was one of the important driving forces that enabled him to continue his unrequited love. Fortunately, appropriate mental victories and self-rationalization were areas where Choi Jae-won excelled.
“What is it? Did you receive some good news? Why are you grinning at your phone like that?”
“It’s nothing. Just something. By the way, Grandfather, you know who my pair is, right?”
“Of course I know! S-class Esper Ryu, Ryu…”
“Chairman, it’s Ho-yeon! Ho-yeon!”
“Right, Ryu Ho-yeon! I remember it perfectly!”
He wasn’t expecting much anyway. Since his grandfather remembered the name, exchanging greetings at the entrance shouldn’t be a problem. Choi Jae-won organized his thoughts this way and continued walking with ease and without worry.
At that very moment. Not knowing what was happening in the residence he had left behind.
“…So. Your grandfather is coming.”
Ryu Ho-yeon, who had abruptly turned off his phone screen, immediately got up from his sprawled position. Surprisingly, Choi Jae-won’s guess, which he thought would be a futile hope, turned out to be accurate this time. The extra “ㅇ”s were indeed Ryu Ho-yeon’s show of sincerity.
Ryu Ho-yeon was under the hopeless delusion that he was still effectively maintaining distance while being sufficiently nice to Choi Jae-won. If anyone could see the useless thoughts packed into that small head, they might have advised him to either maintain distance properly or just be normally nice, choosing one path clearly. But with his only friend having left Korea, there wasn’t even the slightest possibility of someone giving Ryu Ho-yeon such advice.
Today was a precious day off that the Deployment Department had tactfully arranged for Ryu Ho-yeon, who must have been drained from yesterday’s press conference. Since he had to leave for Yeosu at the crack of dawn tomorrow, he had planned to stay completely confined to his home, or more precisely, his bed, without moving an inch. But…
“Can’t be helped. Even the worst obsessive stalkers don’t mess with family. I’ll have to treat him properly, just for today.”
He comfortably muttered to himself without calculating that his version of “properly” and what normal people considered “properly” were about several billion light-years apart. In fact, his habitual references to obsessive stalkers were all just excuses and pretexts. Somehow, they had grown closer without him realizing when it happened, and seeing how smoothly Choi Jae-won handled it when the Research Director occasionally showed up at their residence without notice, Ryu Ho-yeon had unconsciously developed a determination to treat Choi Jae-won’s family well when he met them, even if not as well as Choi Jae-won did.
Come to think of it, though they didn’t have many occasions to meet, Choi Jae-won strangely didn’t find the Research Director intimidating like everyone else did and followed him well, calling him “Director, Director.”
“Ah. This isn’t the time! I don’t have much time!”
Choi Jae-won had just informed him that he had left the visiting room, so even walking slowly, it would take less than twenty minutes to reach the residence. Ryu Ho-yeon racked his brains, recalling guest reception methods he had learned from various movies and dramas, and how Choi Jae-won welcomed the Research Director. Little did he know that what Choi Jae-won actually hoped for was for Ryu Ho-yeon to simply remain still.
Ryu Ho-yeon hurriedly got up, covered his messy bed with a blanket, and dashed out of the room. The first step in welcoming guests was, yes, a thorough cleaning. After all, how could a guest who was privately Choi Jae-won’s grandfather and publicly the richest man in the country easily enter a disorganized home? Praising himself for having such a useful thought for once, Ryu Ho-yeon immediately ran to the bathroom, carelessly dumped the neatly folded towels that Choi Jae-won had organized onto the sink, and soaked them with water. In his mind, he had made an excellent… mop.
If he had known that the latest robot vacuum cleaner that Choi Jae-won had set to run once a day with the smart IoT system also had a wet mopping function, he wouldn’t have made such a foolish attempt. But having spent a year faithfully eating only the meals Choi Jae-won prepared and wearing only the clothes Choi Jae-won selected, thereby driving his already lacking life skills into negative numbers, Ryu Ho-yeon splashed premium towels made of the same material supplied to famous hotels with water and slapped them on the floor to clean it.
Having never properly wrung out a wet towel or mop, he left wet trails wherever he cleaned, making the floor dirtier the more he cleaned, but Ryu Ho-yeon, focused on his first proper cleaning attempt, didn’t notice this. His reckless mopping finally ended after thoroughly scrubbing even the elegant window seat made of solid wood where he usually liked to lie on cushions and read comics. It was a bold gesture that completely disregarded the fact that wooden floors should not be cleaned with soaking wet towels.
“Hah… this is tiring. There’s not enough time to clean the study and dressing room too. Is it good enough if I’ve cleaned the living room at least? I guess that’s enough cleaning… Next is welcoming tea and snacks…”
Fortunately, even Ryu Ho-yeon knew how to properly use a kettle to boil water. There was no need to worry about snacks either. Since learning that Ryu Ho-yeon had an insatiable appetite for desserts of all kinds, Choi Jae-won had kept the refrigerator fully stocked with cakes, macarons, and crème brûlée from famous bakeries. That was fine. The problem was the coffee.
“…”
When he lived alone in the research lab, there was usually a café just downstairs, or he would just make instant coffee. He even knew how to brew capsule coffee. But this was completely unexpected. Since Choi Jae-won knew that Ryu Ho-yeon liked hazelnut lattes, he had installed an espresso machine in their residence. Out of his tearful devotion to make even a single drop of coffee that entered his pair Esper’s mouth fragrant, there wasn’t a single instant coffee mix to be found in any of the kitchen cabinets. Of course, in this process, the once-tidy kitchen quickly became cluttered with various utensils haphazardly pulled out.
“This won’t work. Let’s give up on coffee. He said grandfather, not father, right? Since he’s older, he’ll enjoy hot water too.”
It was a confidence that made it impossible to pinpoint where the flawed thinking began. Ryu Ho-yeon took a neatly packaged cake box from the messy kitchen, placed it on the table, and next to it, set down the kettle of boiling water without any cups. Various parts of the living room were still wet with water marks.
‘This is my first guest welcome… prepared all by myself…!’
If only someone could tell him that this wasn’t the time to be needlessly excited. Just then. Ding-dong, the bell rang.