Flower Fiancé Chapter 64

He approached Ji Yeonwoo, who stood awkwardly in ill-fitting clothes. The pale, clear face seemed to have been filled with many thoughts overnight. Even if he asked Choi Minhyeok, it was obvious he would only say the same thing, so he hadn’t questioned him further, but Ji Yeonwoo was also not the type to readily speak of it himself.

While he was thinking about how to broach the subject, Ji Yeonwoo was the one who spoke first.

“Hey, you know, Mr. Moohyuk.”

At the sudden unfamiliar yet pleasant form of address, Choi Moohyuk’s pupils tensed. When had he ever said he needed time to get used to the title—the new form of address flowing from his lips was natural.

“Do you have something to say?”

As if by magic, his foul mood melted away like snow at that one address that felt somehow intimate.

“Do you have anything smaller than these pants, by any chance? I found them and put them on, but the pants are too big…”

Ji Yeonwoo lightly tugged at the generously sized clothes. As he lifted the t-shirt slightly, the pants hanging precariously below his narrow, lean waist came into view. Seeing this, Choi Moohyuk let out a small, hollow breath.

He had already been holding back his attraction at the sight of him wearing his oversized clothes, and Ji Yeonwoo was practically adding fuel to the fire, begging to be devoured—it was maddening. If anything, Choi Moohyuk might be an even more dangerous person than Choi Minhyeok, and whether Ji Yeonwoo knew this or not was utterly impossible to tell.

Choi Moohyuk approached Ji Yeonwoo and wrapped his arms around his slender waist.

“Those are my smallest pants, so it can’t be helped.”

“Ah, I see.”

“If you’re really uncomfortable, there is another way.”

“Another way? What kind?”

Ji Yeonwoo looked up at him with round eyes. Choi Moohyuk tilted his face past him and brought his lips close to his ear.

“How about just taking them off? The t-shirt is long, so it doesn’t really look like you need to wear pants anyway.”

“…!”

“And I prefer the no-pants option myself.”

“But, mmph!”

As Ji Yeonwoo turned around in alarm, Choi Moohyuk opened his mouth and bit the lips that had come right before his eyes. While he was distracted by the kiss, Choi Moohyuk’s hand, which had been holding his waist, stealthily crept toward the waistband of the pants.

His thumb, having slipped inside the band, rested there as if merely draped, then subtly pulled downward.

Ji Yeonwoo, who had been absorbed in the kiss, felt the pants sliding down and hastily pulled his lips away. The face that looked back at him, hurriedly grabbing the hand that carried impure intentions, was tinged with fluster.

“No, wait a moment.”

Ji Yeonwoo desperately held onto the hand to stop it, his face reddening.

“No matter what, this is…”

The embarrassment had exceeded its limit. He couldn’t even bring himself to finish the rest of his sentence. Seeing that, Choi Moohyuk clicked his tongue as if regretfully.

“…Is it not allowed?”

At the question asked to confirm, the one flustered was Ji Yeonwoo. Don’t tell me he was serious? This was the first time seeing this side of Choi Moohyuk, so he was bewildered. He had just thought it was a joke; he couldn’t understand why he was being so serious. Did something really happen in the study? With a premonition that things would go his way again at this rate, he snapped back to his senses.

“O-of course not.”

Seeing Ji Yeonwoo speak in rapid-fire while avoiding eye contact, Choi Moohyuk smiled faintly.

“Why not? Because you’re shy?”

Ji Yeonwoo nodded.

“What is there to be shy about? Between people who’ve already seen everything there is to see.”

Ji Yeonwoo, who had been about to say something, ended up hastily shutting his mouth. Seeing both cheeks flushed a little red, it seemed he must have imagined something.

Seen everything there is to see… Muttering the words Choi Moohyuk had spoken, Ji Yeonwoo opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish, finally narrowing his eyes.

“Then you take yours off too, Managing Director. Then I will too.”

“It’s not that I can’t, but… things were going so well—why has it become Managing Director again?”

“If you keep teasing me, I’ll keep calling you Managing Director.”

His lean cheek bulged out petulantly. It was an expression full of discontent.

“Ah, so this is how you’re going to play it? You’re doing this on purpose right now, aren’t you?”

“…”

“You clearly know I like the new form of address.”

As if staging a protest, Ji Yeonwoo kept his lips tightly sealed and refused to open them. Choi Moohyuk let out a deflating laugh instead.

Trying to use something someone liked as a weakness to bargain was a sly idea, but since Ji Yeonwoo was the one doing it, it felt a bit awkward. Above all, even his angry expression was so utterly gentle that it didn’t have much impact.

“Alright. Don’t be mad.”

But originally, good people were scarier when they got angry. Thinking he should stop here, Choi Moohyuk reached out his hand toward Ji Yeonwoo, who had fallen back at a suitable distance. He seized the waist that was about to retreat and pulled him into his embrace. Contrary to his expectations, Ji Yeonwoo was drawn in obediently by the touch.

Wrapping both hands around the waist that seemed to have lost particular weight lately, he lightly stroked down and met his eyes.

“More importantly, isn’t there anything you’re curious about with me?”

The round eyes that had been drifting diagonally downward followed him up.

“I don’t know what you heard, so I can’t answer first.”

The dark pupils facing him, with his head tilted slightly back, trembled with a flinch. Without explaining whom he had heard from, or what he was curious about, Ji Yeonwoo seemed to have understood his words at once.

“If there’s something you’re curious about, ask. Because I’ll answer you.”

Only then did the closed lips slowly part.

“Will you tell me everything?”

“Yes.”

“No saying you don’t know, or you’ll tell me later, none of that?”

“Alright.”

Choi Moohyuk nodded as he answered. Ji Yeonwoo, who had been reading his mood, slowly opened his mouth.

“About Mr. Minhyeok, is he really Mr. Choi Moohyuk’s younger brother?”

The first question was something he had fully anticipated.

“If you’re asking whether he’s my biological younger brother, then yes, he is.”

But the answer was a little strange somehow. If he was, he was; what did biological younger brother even mean? Ji Yeonwoo tilted his head as if he didn’t quite understand.

“He’s my half-brother.”

“…Ah!”

Hearing that he really was his brother, Ji Yeonwoo couldn’t quite manage his expression. Though he didn’t make a surprised face since it was the truth, his dizzily wavering eyes spoke for his heart.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been surprised…”

“It’s fine. For me, I could just let it slide, but that guy Minhyeok got a fair bit of stress. He was compared to hyung a lot.”

He felt he understood without any further explanation. Leaving aside outward appearance, their words and actions were different, far too different.

“That guy Minhyeok apologized, but I’ll apologize again as well. I’m sorry he was rude. I hope you feel better.”

Rather, upon hearing Choi Moohyuk’s apology, Ji Yeonwoo even waved both his hands.

“I wasn’t offended. And why is Mr. Moohyuk apologizing. It was your younger brother’s fault.”

“This might sound like spitting on my own face, but our parents raised him without manners, so he is somewhat immature. To be precise, it would be my stepmother’s fault.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Choi Moohyuk’s face became contemplative.

Seeing that expression, Ji Yeonwoo couldn’t readily add any words. From the matter of his biological mother, who had supposedly turned her back on the world, to his stepmother and the younger brother, Choi Minhyeok, born under her. He couldn’t shake the thought that Choi Moohyuk was standing in the middle of a complicated family history.

Could it be that the reason his mother passed away also involved the existence of his stepmother or Mr. Minhyeok?

“Is there nothing else?”

Hearing the softly probing voice, Ji Yeonwoo refocused his eyes.

In truth, Choi Minhyeok’s existence wasn’t that much of a curiosity. There was something else he really wanted to ask, but he hadn’t been able to bring it up first because the words wouldn’t come readily.

“Seeing Mr. Yeonwoo hesitate makes even me nervous.”

“…”

“It’s alright, so tell me.”

At the urging words that accompanied the stroking of his waist, whether knowingly or unknowingly, Ji Yeonwoo let out a small sigh.

‘You do know what kind of work hyung does, right?’

‘Seonwoo Mulsan Managing Director… is what…’

‘Excuse me? Well, that’s not wrong either, but… good grief.’

Those words that Choi Minhyeok had let out with a sigh at the end wouldn’t leave his mind. The problem was that he felt he roughly knew what those words implied.

There were many grounds for it.