Flower Fiancé Chapter 10

Sure enough, among the recent records, there was a missed call logged from the number he had just dialed.

“It’s my personal number, so save it.”

Ji Yeonwoo, who had been scanning the recent call history up and down, turned toward the direction of his voice. Before he knew it, he was standing with the driver’s door open.

“Uh, well…”

As if he had something to say, Ji Yeonwoo reached a hand out toward him and rose from his seat.

“If you call again, I’d appreciate it if you answered this time.”

Ji Yeonwoo, who had frozen once more at the words he left behind, was met with Choi Moohyuk lightly waving his phone at him.

Seeing as he deliberately emphasized it was his personal number, did that mean it wasn’t the number written on his business card? But all of his actions had flowed as naturally as water… There was something about it that felt unsettling, so he furrowed his brow and tilted his head, when suddenly a thought struck him.

‘Could it be he knew where his phone was from the very beginning?’

The questions that began to arise naturally led one into another, linked tail after tail.

‘Perhaps he even knew that I hadn’t saved his number…’

He recalled his own image, reacting so unusually awkwardly to the question of why he hadn’t answered the calls.

Ji Yeonwoo stared blankly at the rear view of Choi Moohyuk’s car, already far away.

‘Is this what they call having the wool pulled over your eyes?’

Gazing quietly at him receding among the cars driving down the road, Ji Yeonwoo recalled Choi Moohyuk’s face as he shook his phone, laughing in a way that wasn’t hateful.

“Huh… I got completely played.”

Letting out a small, hollow breath, Ji Yeonwoo let out a short laugh and turned back toward home.

∞ ∞ ∞

A week had passed since then.

Everything was the same as usual.

Inside Flower Fiancé, where quiet classical music flowed, the scent of flowers was full, and various well-tended flowers were in full bloom.

If there was something that had changed, it was that Ji Yeonwoo’s gaze was constantly directed at his phone.

For Ji Yeonwoo, a phone’s only uses were making calls and checking the time. When he was working, he didn’t even check those well, so he was always searching for where he had put it. Since the notifications were on vibrate, once he lost it, it often took quite a long time to find. It was not a common occurrence for that Ji Yeonwoo to keep his phone beside him and check it frequently.

Dressed in a white angora knit, jeans, and a brown apron, Ji Yeonwoo sat on the stool in front of the register, looking out through the plate glass window. Outside, the sun had already set, leaving it dark.

“…Yeah, figures.”

When they had run into each other in front of the convenience store, his words asking him to answer if he called again kept circling in his mind. They hadn’t met privately, and he had thought maybe it would be okay to pick up just once, so he had intended to answer if he called again.

Since that day, Choi Moohyuk had neither contacted him nor visited Flower Fiancé again.

But he didn’t particularly feel hurt. There was no way someone who was a managing director of a good company would take an interest in the owner of a small flower shop like this. It might even be more natural to think that he had just said it out of a sense of pleasantry upon seeing a familiar face again.

If he thought of him as just one of the customers who passed through, it wasn’t something to pay great mind to. After all, all encounters made in this space were fleeting, like mayflies.

But why did his mood feel so low?

When he had a moment, he’d shaken up someone who was doing perfectly fine with all sorts of heart-fluttering words, and now he was acting as if he didn’t know him for an entire week. He felt as if his feelings had been toyed with by that person for no reason.

Ji Yeonwoo withdrew his gaze from the plate glass and let his shoulders slump.

— Jingle.

Sitting vacantly, Ji Yeonwoo’s eyes snapped wide open.

“…!”

His gaze shot reflexively toward the opening door.

“What, why are you so surprised?”

It was his friend Seo Eungyeom. As if he had just gotten off work, Eungyeom was in a neat suit. Ji Yeonwoo, who had been looking at the approaching Eungyeom with a flustered face, hurriedly turned his eyes to the clock on the wall. It was earlier than Eungyeom’s usual time off.

“What brings you here at this hour?”

“I finished early. After all that constant overtime, they told me to go home early today, of all days.”

Eungyeom naturally set his briefcase down beside Ji Yeonwoo.

“More to the point, were you expecting someone?”

“No?”

“Tsssp, no way. This is definitely the face of someone disappointed it wasn’t the person they were waiting for.”

“What… no, it’s nothing.”

Eungyeom narrowed one eye and pushed his face close to Ji Yeonwoo’s. Hit squarely on the mark, Ji Yeonwoo just moved his lips silently before closing them.

“Who is it. That person you were talking about on the phone that time? Right?”

Ghost-like Seo Eungyeom. Truly, he felt that if he said one more word here, his current mood and miserable state would be completely laid bare in front of Seo Eungyeom.

“Hey, I’m hungry. You haven’t eaten, right? Let’s go, what do you want to eat?”

Thinking this wasn’t good, Ji Yeonwoo took off his apron and placed it on the counter.

“Already? There’s still a long time until closing, though?”

“My friend came by for the first time in a while, how can I just stay here. Get up. How about pork belly and soju?”

Before Eungyeom could even answer, Ji Yeonwoo prepared to wrap things up. His hands were busy organizing the desk, pressing the POS screen, and settling the day’s accounts. Seo Eungyeom silently watched Ji Yeonwoo’s movements with just his eyes following him.

The pork belly restaurant the two went to was a regular spot, and also the place where they had laughed and cried, tilting glasses when Ji Yeonwoo had married and divorced.

Ji Yeonwoo and Seo Eungyeom set up their usual order and talked about the everyday things that had happened in the meantime. The topics Eungyeom brought up were mainly complaints about his workplace superiors, and Ji Yeonwoo was on the listening end. Occasionally, when Eungyeom talked about the person he was seeing, he wondered how to respond, but Ji Yeonwoo desperately kept the subject of Choi Moohyuk from leaving his mouth.

The fact that he hadn’t contacted him or come by for a whole week probably meant that their connection was meant to end here. So he didn’t want to ascribe pointless meaning to trivial words like let’s eat, let’s have a drink, I’ll be in touch.

Was it because he’d had alcohol, which he normally didn’t drink much of? His reactions were exaggerated, and his voice grew louder. Because of the noisy interior of the pork belly restaurant, their voices were buried and didn’t even stand out, but Ji Yeonwoo knew he was gradually getting drunk.

It seemed the culprit was continuously gulping down drinks he couldn’t even hold well, carried away by the atmosphere. Seo Eungyeom, sitting across from him, looked split into two, as if using a cloning technique. It was just the moment he thought he should stop drinking now.

— Bzzzz.

The phone placed on the table vibrated. Ji Yeonwoo, who had glanced at the phone screen without thinking, opened his eyes wide.

[ Managing Director Choi Moohyuk: Is today your day off? ]

It felt as if cold water had been dumped over his head. Far from sobering up, his mind snapped sharply alert. Could he have come to the shop? The time was now heading toward 7:30 PM. Since he closed at 8, it was, under normal circumstances, a time he would be at the shop.

As soon as the preview screen went dark, turning black, Ji Yeonwoo hastily grabbed his phone. Opening the message window, his thumbs moved quickly, tapping the screen.

— No, it’s not a day off, but I’m not at the shop right now. Did you actually come by?

[ Managing Director Choi Moohyuk: Yes. The lights are off. ]

— I’m sorry. A friend I haven’t seen in a while came by.

[ Managing Director Choi Moohyuk: Ah, is that so? ]

Silence flowed in the window where the conversation had been moving quickly. Ji Yeonwoo held the phone in both hands and stared blankly at the screen. For some reason, his hands felt sweaty. Just then, with a swish, a new message appeared.

[ Managing Director Choi Moohyuk: I see you’re in the middle of eating. ]

— Yes.

[ Managing Director Choi Moohyuk: I see. ]

After that, Choi Moohyuk said nothing. One minute, two minutes. As time passed in the silence, Ji Yeonwoo grew inexplicably anxious. Baseless regret washed over him. He should have just stayed at the shop. He didn’t resent Eungyeom for visiting after so long, but he didn’t want to let a connection that gave him a good feeling slip through his own fingers. The moment that thought occurred to him, his fingers moved on their own.

— Would it be alright if I called you when I get home?

As soon as the message appeared on the screen, Ji Yeonwoo unconsciously drew in a small breath. He felt his vision go white and his fingers stiffen.