Flower Fiancé Chapter 20

Sitting in front of the desk and gazing at the falling rain, lost in thought, Ji Yeonwoo suddenly realized that he was smiling.

They were no more than lovers who had just started, yet watching himself change little by little gave him a strange feeling.

— Buzz.

The phone on the desk vibrated. A message that had just arrived appeared at the top of the screen of the phone he had casually picked up.

[ Managing Director Choi Moohyuk : Has the busy period settled down? ]

Ji Yeonwoo wrapped both hands around the phone and tapped the screen with his thumbs, tap tap.

— Yes. It’s quiet now.

Immediately after, a weak vibration was felt in his hands.

[ Managing Director Choi Moohyuk : The rain is really coming down. Do you have an umbrella? ]

Ji Yeonwoo, who had been looking at the message on the screen, turned his head toward the inside of the desk. In the corner where his gaze landed, a single navy long umbrella stood. Ji Yeonwoo stared at the long umbrella, which he couldn’t even remember how long it had been there, with narrowed eyes for no reason, then tapped the screen.

After repeatedly typing and deleting, Ji Yeonwoo ultimately wrote just two characters and pressed send.

— No.

He felt anxious. It was the moment he wondered if he should have just honestly said he did have one.

[ Managing Director Choi Moohyuk : I’ll come pick you up in time for your closing time. ]

A hollow breath leaked through Ji Yeonwoo’s lips as he quickly read the message, moving only his pupils. He had wondered if he might, but he hadn’t expected him to actually say he would come to pick him up.

A smile spread across Ji Yeonwoo’s face as he looked at the screen.

∞ ∞ ∞

It was only now that Ji Yeonwoo truly felt the fact that he was dating.

The dating that Ji Yeonwoo had known was a continuous series of waiting and loneliness.

At least, that was what the dating Ji Yeonwoo had experienced was like. What remained at the end of calculated kindness was waiting, and enduring the accompanying loneliness was also Ji Yeonwoo’s share. There were frequent times when they would contact him saying to meet up and then suddenly cancel, saying something had come up, but back then he had been young and naive, so he had believed all those nonsensical excuses at face value.

Since it had been like that, he must have been deceived by sweet talk and decided to get married as soon as he graduated from high school.

Things experienced firsthand through the body were not easily erased. Moreover, the scars left behind did not disappear as time passed but merely faded, remaining in place as if they had become scars.

Honestly, when Choi Moohyuk had said he would do the dating and told him to just play along, Ji Yeonwoo had been swayed by the emotions of the moment and agreed. But on the other hand, he had doubted how different Choi Moohyuk would be. How sincere could someone who was a dominant Alpha be toward an Omega who had even lost his pheromones? Interpreting his words against the backdrop of previous experiences was perhaps only natural.

But the more he received his touch, the more Ji Yeonwoo’s preconceptions began to erase their traces one by one.

Picking at his rice as if counting the grains with his chopsticks was a habit of Ji Yeonwoo’s, but instead of scolding him asking why he ate his rice like that, Choi Moohyuk placed delicious side dishes on top of his rice bowl. Instead of berating him asking what was cold when the heater was on, Choi Moohyuk took off his own coat and draped it over him. At that kindness, Ji Yeonwoo’s heart raced as if it had malfunctioned.

He didn’t want to believe that every single one of these actions was calculated.

Just looking at him made his heart pound, and was dating supposed to be full of only this kind of warmth and affection?

At the very least, this was distinctly different from the form of dating Ji Yeonwoo knew. The idea that the romance drama protagonists experienced was just a fantasy, and that reality wouldn’t be much different from what he himself had gone through—Ji Yeonwoo’s complacent belief in that was overturned by Choi Moohyuk.

Sitting in front of the desk and admiring the rain falling beyond the darkening glass window, Ji Yeonwoo fixed his gaze upon seeing a black foreign car pull up in front of the shop. Shortly after, the driver’s side door opened, a long umbrella unfurled, and a familiar person stepped out.

The man who walked toward the shop met his eyes through the glass window, its interior fully visible. His face reflected in the neon sign lights could be seen.

The gaze looking straight at Ji Yeonwoo, the gently upturned corners of his mouth.

A smile spread across Ji Yeonwoo’s lips in turn.

He couldn’t take his eyes off Choi Moohyuk as he entered the shop.

His appearance was different from usual.

His hair was neatly slicked back with pomade as always and he was dressed in a suit, but the attire he was wearing underneath was put together more formally than usual. The fact that he hadn’t left one or two shirt buttons undone as he normally did, but had fastened every single button, as well as the cufflinks adorning his shirt cuffs, especially caught the eye. They were cufflinks of a luxurious material, entirely made of silver.

His gaze was stolen by the cufflinks, fixed on both of Choi Moohyuk’s wrists and sparkling lustrously. At the end of his gaze, the toes of black dress shoes came to a stop one after the other. His eyes traveled up from the spotlessly clean shoes, along the smooth suit pants without a single wrinkle. The higher they went, the more his thick upper body filled his field of vision.

Where his gaze stopped was Choi Moohyuk’s face. Even normally, he wasn’t a person of many expressions, but today, Choi Moohyuk’s face was close to expressionless.

Had something bad happened?

The moment he thought that, Choi Moohyuk, who had been quietly receiving his stare, raised one eyebrow.

“Is there something on my face?”

Only then did Ji Yeonwoo flinch and tear his gaze away.

“No. It’s just, your style is different from usual.”

Choi Moohyuk looked over his own attire.

“I was on my way back from somewhere.”

“I’ve troubled you for no reason, it seems.”

A sharpness entered Choi Moohyuk’s eyes, which had been consistently expressionless.

“Why do you say that?”

“I didn’t know you had plans.”

“It wasn’t a particularly important appointment.”

Wasn’t that contradicting himself? He wouldn’t have gone to an appointment that wasn’t important wearing cufflinks he didn’t normally wear.

The possibilities he could guess narrowed down to two.

Either he had had plans but wrapped up that meeting early and came, or he had come without attending that important appointment.

Whichever the reason was, the likelihood that Choi Moohyuk had turned his steps around because of Ji Yeonwoo was high.

“Do you still have more left to do?”

Choi Moohyuk, standing with both hands in his pants pockets, looked at Ji Yeonwoo. Ji Yeonwoo, who had been about to say something, hesitated and closed his mouth. Actually, he hadn’t been able to eat a single meal today and had been thinking of asking if he’d like to eat together if he had time, but he decided to keep those words to himself. It was because Choi Moohyuk didn’t seem to be in a very good mood, and he felt like he was unnecessarily inconveniencing a busy Choi Moohyuk.

“I’m done. Just a moment, let me just tidy this up.”

As soon as he spoke, decorative items he hadn’t yet organized caught his eye. How did I not see those? Ji Yeonwoo turned toward the desk and slotted the ribbons and wrapping paper back into their places.

Choi Moohyuk came closer, leaning against the desk as he looked at Ji Yeonwoo.

“Tomorrow’s the weekend. What do you do?”

“I have to work.”

“You don’t rest, even on the weekend?”

“I don’t really have designated days off.”

“That’s a bit of a shame.”

“….”

“When will we date.”

Ji Yeonwoo, who had rolled up the last remaining piece of wrapping paper and inserted it into a cylindrical container, turned his head. Standing quite close, Choi Moohyuk and Ji Yeonwoo were now facing each other in front of the desk before they knew it.

“Do you want to date me?”

“Isn’t that obvious? If I don’t date my lover, who would I date?”

Choi Moohyuk spoke as if asking something obvious. Ji Yeonwoo, who had been staring intently at Choi Moohyuk, slowly smiled. It felt as if the atmosphere of Choi Moohyuk, which he had felt was more coldly frozen than usual, had melted into something supple and gentle with just a few words.

“Mr. Ji Yeonwoo, isn’t there anything you want to do?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Then think about it from now on. A movie you want to see, or a place you want to travel to.”

“Traveling won’t be easy. With the nature of the shop, it’s difficult to close for long.”

“Ah, because of the flowers?”

“Yes.”

Choi Moohyuk looked around the inside of the shop and asked.

“Do you absolutely have to come out and tend to them every day?”

“It’s not absolutely required, but if I don’t take care of them every day, they can’t maintain good condition.”

“That’s going to be tough going forward. My lover is a workaholic.”

Hearing Choi Moohyuk’s joke-laced words, Ji Yeonwoo smiled gently.

“In exchange, couldn’t we just date in the evenings?”