Strategic Mating Partner Chapter 100

“Hyung, what are you looking at that makes you seem so happy?”

Whaaaaa, Taehyun was startled for a moment and hid his phone in his grasp. Normally, he would have calmly spat out some nonchalant excuse, but because his junior suddenly threw the door open and came in, he was so flustered for a moment that he almost let out a scream. By a stroke of luck, he was able to avoid the tragedy of letting out an ugly shriek with his own voice, but instead, he looked so suspiciously startled and flustered that he ended up looking like someone who clearly had something to hide.

“Uh…!? Oh, no, it’s just….”

No, think before you speak, Sung Taehyun! You’re not some rapper who forgot his lyrics, you shouldn’t have been stammering ‘uh, uh,’ you should have answered naturally! It was painful how stupid he felt himself to be. However, his mind went blank for a moment and he could not think of anything. After an awkward silence, Taehyun’s face unknowingly turned beet red. Thanks to that, he ended up scattering hints all over the place that even a fool could notice that something was strange about Taehyun.

“I was just looking at something I talked about with my friends a while ago. Since I want to go around and have fun here and there once the Olympics are over, I thought it would be good to start contacting the guys….”

Even as Taehyun said it himself, a sense of shame washed over him at what a foolish thing this was to say. Do you think they will believe this, when you have already been caught grinning from ear to ear? It would have been better to say you were looking at a humor website or a collection of cute puppy and kitten videos. That would have been much more plausible. Regret washed over him belatedly, but it was already too late. The junior, who at first just had a slightly surprised expression, was now looking at Taehyun with a face full of intent to tease him.

“Really? That cannot be right. What kind of friend talk do you look at while smiling so slyly? Hyung, did you get a ‘some’ girl?”

The junior, who would not have the slightest expectation that Taehyun could have a ‘some’ guy six years younger than him, quickly came up to Taehyun’s side and smiled with a mischievous face. Ha, I am screwed. Still, Taehyun decided to feign ignorance for now.

“It is not like that. What do you mean slyly? I was just smiling lightly.”

However, the junior already seemed convinced. That was understandable, because ever since arriving in LA, not only had Taehyun been constantly taking pictures, but he had also been looking at his screen and curling the corners of his mouth up as if he were contacting someone. That was clearly the kind of behavior someone in a romantic relationship would do. Taehyun knew that too, so even if he had ten mouths, he had nothing more to say to deny it.

“What do you mean it is not? Who is she? Is she pretty? Ah, maybe it is that idol?”

Who on earth are you thinking of? Taehyun frowned. Sejin’s visuals are better than most idols, but…. No, why am I having these thoughts? He immediately came to his senses and refuted it again.

“What, why is there a girlfriend candidate for me that I do not even know about? Which idol?”

When he asked back because he genuinely had no clue, the junior answered as if he were even more bewildered.

“Hyung, did you not see that? The female idol who debuted from A-Lab this time, the ideal type she answered in her ‘Ask Me Anything’ was totally you. Tall, handsome, good body, kind, good at sports, takes good care of the people around him… uh, what else was there, that’s right, a polite person with good social skills.”

And why does he remember that in such detail? Taehyun was shocked again.

“What is that about? Are there only one or two people like that in the world?”

When he retorted because it was absurd, the junior got even more excited and raised his voice.

“No, listen, she said she was an elementary school athlete until before she started as a trainee. The online communities were in an uproar saying if her dating scandal broke, it would be you for sure, sunbae, did you not see it?”

I did not see it. It is not like they spammed my social media as if they were protesting, so how would I know that. Some celebrities supposedly waste their entire day going around various online communities and searching their own names, but Taehyun was not at that level. He would just check the reactions when he uploaded a new post on social media and occasionally, when an article was published in the official media, he would check the comment section of that article.

On social media, most people wrote only good things unless Taehyun had really done something wrong, and he thought that he might be able to see the public’s more direct reputation in the comments. And he was right to some extent. The problem was that the comments on articles were half malicious comments and half cheers. There was no way Taehyun would know what kind of winds were blowing in the online communities.

“I did not see it. I do not look up things like online communities. It is not like anything changes by looking at them.”

“Really? Why not? If it were me, I would look it up every day. They were making a huge fuss saying every time one of your press photos came out, it was a pictorial.”

Whatever. The ridicule saying you cannot win a medal with popularity that comes up every time I search is more heartbreaking. Anyway, it was a relief for a moment that the topic of conversation had jumped to something else. The junior, not missing the opening, asked again.

“So who is it? The person you are in a ‘some’ with right now.”

“Pfft.”

Just when he was relieved that he had managed to change the subject, the conversation returned to square one, and Taehyun, startled for a moment, gasped and choked on his breath.

“Cough, hack, ugh.”

As Taehyun hunched over, pressing down on his chest, trying hard not to burst into an unsightly series of coughs, the junior, who was also startled, was terrified and went out to get water.

“Gasp, wait a minute, water, I will go get water!”

Ah, damn, I am so screwed. I had shown so many signs of being a guilty person that at this point, denying it would just look like I was affirming it. Soon, Taehyun received the water his junior brought, drank it, and calmed his startled heart, finally saying something the junior would want to hear.

“It might just be me thinking this way for now, so I cannot say. I will tell you when it becomes certain later.”

When Taehyun finally finished his denial, as if saying he did not need to be told who the person was, the junior got all excited and jumped around.

“Wow! I knew it! What do you mean you do not have anyone you are interested in, you had someone all along. You are planning to confess right after winning the gold medal, right? Isn’t that practically a proposal, that is really amazing.”

Please be quiet. Taehyun, ha, sighed inwardly. From now on, if I have to send a message, I absolutely must go to the bathroom to do it. I would rather be suspected of being constipated than be the object of smirking interest while being suspected of being in a ‘some’ with some imaginary person.

“If you get it, then be quiet. If it does not work out, I am blaming it all on you, okay?”

The junior finally quieted down only after Taehyun said even that.

“If it works out, you will let me know too, right?”

“Ah, I said I get it.”

Let you know what. I am going to keep it a secret until we walk down the aisle. Taehyun inadvertently scoffed, humph, and then for a moment, he got goosebumps at what sentence he had just thought of. Walk down the aisle? With him? What am I even…. And reflexively, his face grew scorching hot, so he buried his face in his pillow, pretending to be tired.

“……?”

The junior tilted his head as if he were somewhat puzzled, but it did not matter. What kind of premature celebration am I having right now. The part about going down to rock bottom together was just nonsense he said because he did not know any better, and he should have just taken the part about it not mattering even though she knows everything about his father as the only sincere part, but what was he doing thinking about marriage; he felt so pathetic.

‘No, but….’

If I was not going to go that far, was there any reason to have 고민ed over it so much in the first place? If I had planned to break up after playing along for a while, if it was no different from other people, a lot of things would have been different. I am in my late 20s now, and to be honest, having someone to lean on was a feeling of stability and satisfaction that I had never felt before.

He was a little quirky, and sometimes I would let out a hollow laugh thinking, ah, he is really young, but even those moments were enjoyable. I had a thought that with Sejin, a life like this—laughing while making silly jokes, being held in someone’s arms and being pampered, and enjoying happy moments together—would be possible. Then naturally, you want to keep them by your side for a long, long time, and I was not unaware that the clearest way to make that a reality was marriage.

“……”

Fuck, I really like him to a ridiculously foolish degree. Taehyun buried his face in the pillow again in frustration. Once he became aware of it, every single thing he thought of was so childish that he was embarrassed. Taehyun, who had held his breath for a long while and finally calmed down, lifted his head again, and the phone, its screen now off, came into view. Ah, right. I was supposed to reply to Sejin earlier. As he tried his best to maintain his poker face and turned on the screen, the familiar picture that looked like someone had done their best to take it unattractively filled the screen.