Ji Ho hid his smile while slightly rubbing his lower lip with his folded index finger, as if he knew all about her thoughts. Hye Yoon felt a bit wronged. She was sure that he had the same thoughts as her, but why couldn’t she act as casually as he did?
Suddenly, something he put into Hye Yoon’s hand.
‘…Isn’t this a smart key?’
Hye Yoon looked into Ji Ho’s eyes with question. In the small shadow created by the brim of his hat, his deep eyes, which looked at only one person, seemed rather weighty.
“Go ahead to the car. I’ll be down soon.”
She thought only his gaze had darkened, but his voice had also somehow become a bit lower.
She should’ve said she understood and left this place, but she just opened her mouth like a person who had lost words, and no sound came out properly. Seeing her like that, Ji Ho subtly stepped aside.
He said there was no need to respond, just walk.
Hye Yoon’s heart was thumping fast, as fast as she had broken down her walking steps ten times more. The eyes that were moving along with her also played their part. The key that Ji Ho had handed her had become warm.
And when her hand touched the last gateway, the entrance to the dressing room.
“Hye Yoon.”
He called her name so tenderly. For the first time.
Hye Yoon didn’t quite remember how to turn around naturally. She swallowed hard. She exhaled a short breath and hesitated, hesitated, hesitated, turning her head like a broken doll.
“Think about what you’ll have for dinner while you wait.”
The unbearable awkwardness again drew her in so. Ji Ho playfully pushed her a bit more. He couldn’t help it. Sometimes, a crying child is so adorable that you want to tease them a bit more.
A smile spread across Ji Ho’s lips as he turned back and went into the room.
“Ji Ho, your body has improved since two years ago, hasn’t it?”
“I guess it’s because I’ve been weight training.”
“Yes, your shoulders have widened, and so has your chest circumference. Good thing you came.”
The manager wrote down the measured values on a piece of paper. She was excited. His appearance in 5 years, 10 years, and even further in the future. It would surpass his current appearance, which felt clearly impossible. Because it had been like that every year.
‘I can’t imagine what he would look like when he reaches middle age, with his masculinity becoming richer.’
She shook her head as if she was amazed.
“By the way, Ji Ho, would you like to see the uniforms too? Hye Yoon chose and left. Since you two are set in different schools, the designs should be different. There are several samples.”
“Please give me the most monotonous one. So it doesn’t stand out too much.”
‘I wonder if Ji Ho is the biggest miscast if he wants something that doesn’t stand out?’ Such a question sprang up, but she shook her head and dismissed that thought as well. Her eyes were drawn to the darkest and plainest design of the male uniforms.
“Oh, is that the role?”
“Yes. I would like it a bit mismatched in size, as if it’s a handmedown, and loose. And as much as possible….”
His speech, leisurely but not clogged, paused for a moment. But that was only for a moment.
“A design that highlights Hye Yoon, not me.”
“Wow, going this far? Ji Ho, your dating style is very manly, isn’t it?”
“That’s the role.”
The manager rolled her eyes, but since it wasn’t a lie, he acted a bit confidently.
The name Hye Yoon, held in Ji Ho’s mouth, felt too sweet. Continuously calling it, the brief moment it lingered in his mouth before calling, all of it was satisfying.
“But before you came, Ji Ho. Everyone was mumbling about Hye Yoon, so I had to cough awkwardly and come in.”
“……I see.”
He seemed to understand the situation. When he entered the dressing room, people who hadn’t finished their long conversation because they didn’t realize he had arrived. After their eyes finally met, they shut their mouths, they must have said more when she wasn’t there.
‘How could that little girl have endured it?’
Ji Ho’s gaze fell to the distant floor. The thought that he might be the only one feeling this sweetness started to spread a bitter taste in one part of his heart.
“Oh my, if you open the door and tears are dripping….”
“Did she cry?”
Ji Ho quickly turned his head and retorted. His rationality didn’t have time to suppress his emotions. At the imagination of her crying.
“No. I also thought she might be, so I went in, but what do you know? She was listening carefully with her ears pricked up and then suddenly got angry? Her fists were clenched, and she was stomping her foot on the floor?”
“Ah……”
He bit his lip quietly. It was too vivid. How wide the girllike woman would have opened her eyes, how tightly she would have clenched her already small hands to make them look even smaller, how cute her thickly protruded lower lip would have been.
“……She must have looked like an angry squirrel.”
“That’s right. That’s the perfect description.”
The two left the room with a laugh. The manager waved her hand at Ji Ho, saying it was rude to hold people who were about to go on a date for too long. His footsteps leaving the building, bowing politely, were light.
Thump
With the opening of the car door, happiness brushed past his nose. Ji Ho thought that indeed, the sense of smell is quicker than sight in people. The scent of Hye Yoon filling the car. It was impressive how deeply it was embedded in just 20 minutes.
Her body seemed frail, as if the car seat had grown larger.
“Ah, this……”
With an awkward or polite hand, he received the precious key, their fingers brushing.
“Were you surprised earlier? Was I too brash?”
“No! I wanted to say something too, but I couldn’t get my mouth to open……”
A lie that he wasn’t surprised, a truthful statement that his mouth wouldn’t open. Like the people in the waiting room who only half understood, Hye Yoon was only half honest.
Ji Ho pressed the ignition button and turned on the music. To the music with a decent rhythm, Hye Yoon relaxed, bobbing her head sleepily.
“So, did you think about it?”
“……What?”
“What we’re going to eat for dinner.”
“What? Was that for real?”
After a few words, her head stopped abruptly. Surprised eyes vividly looked at Ji Ho.
Inside the enclosed car, the scent that made a man’s heart race, sitting at a distance of only about one foot, looking at him with brown eyes. In those eyes shimmering in the low sun, it seemed like the peak of autumn had arrived.
This time, it was Ji Ho who turned his head first.
“……Because there are still things we need to talk about.”
If he kept looking at her, it seemed like he would cross the line. Be it his heart, or body.
My Step-brother Is Obsessed With Me (Female-dominant)
A gentle female protagonist vs pitiful in the early stage, and a sick male protagonist in the later stage
Cheng Songer transmigrated into the body of a vicious cannon fodder female supporting character with the same name as her in a female-dominant novel.
In the original story, the cannon fodder female supporting character was inhumane, committing domestic violence, gambling excessively, being lustful, and even wanting to sell her stepbrother to a brothel for money.
As luck would have it, she just happened to transmigrate at this time.
Seeing Cheng Qingzhi biting his lip, enduring the tears in his eyes, looking pitiful, her heart softened.
She stuffed the money back into the Madam’s hand and reached out to him.
“Brother, come home with me.”
