North - South

Couple rings

If Se-ri's office had made him feel awkward because of its feigned opulence, Se-ri's home wasn't causing Jeong Hyeok a fainter feeling, although the reason was quite the opposite.

After having scoured – without much success – Seung-jun's room, the girl was now giving him a proper home tour, both out of simple manners and in the unlikely event that he would have found something useful that she had missed or never considered.

That tour was what was baffling him.

Not only her fridge was empty to the point that he wondered how she could even survive, but also equally empty was her room, with the exception of a closet whose semi-opened drawers revealed how the owner had recently paid a cursory visit to it.

"It's Seung-jun's place, not mine," Se-ri remembered him all of a sudden, perceiving one of the reasons for his silence. Far from reassuring the man, her words gave him a doubt. One of those doubts about which one couldn't be sure if the uncertainty really was worse than a clarifying reply.

"You two..."

To this, Se-ri stopped to look at him, her sharpened jaw revealing how the question had insulted and hurt her even if she wasn't prone to display the crack. 

"Of course, no. It's what they would have wanted though, so we pretended to date. My idea" she added, challenging him to judge again, "this way they allowed us to come to Swiss, and his dad bought this place for us. Allowing me to live here rent-free is Seung-jun's way to be thankful."

"I'm sorry if I asked. It's just that..." gosh, it was embarrassing, "your room... it seems as if you don't live there." The bed, the bed seemed as if she didn't sleep there, but Jeong Hyeok didn't dare to voice it.

"Ah. It's because I work a lot, sometimes I don't even have time to come back for the night." The office was provided with an excellent heating system which costs were included in the rental fee. Hence, what was the point of sleeping at home? Se-ri was so used to spending the whole winter in the office that she hadn't stopped that habit even if she could afford the bills of the house now.

"You shouldn't. Working till late is unhealthy. You shouldn't neglect your health this way, it's serious."

"Paying the bills of a house too."

So small, so stupid, and miserable her reply was making him feel, Jeong Hyeok had to avert her look for a while. And in that while it occurred to him that he had seen Se-ri turning on the boiler only when he had entered the house. The place was freezing cold indeed as if it had never been properly warmed through the whole, implacable, Swiss winter.

And even if he knew that Se-ri would have detested feeling pitied, all that he longed at that moment was to hug her. To hug her and to never let her go from that hug. It was probably just because of a vibration of her phone if he didn't materialize that longing.

"Sorry, it's a vocal from my brother, going to my room."

Cautious in closing the door at her back, Se-ri walked to the farthest corner of her room, mentally cursing to have forgotten the headphones on her desk at the office. Now she would have had to keep the volume at its minimum and hope for Jeong Hyeok to not catch a single word.

Standing behind the door tough, the man in love and the musician with an excellent hearing didn't even need to place his ear on the wood to get every single menace – don't accept dad's offer, the house belongs to us, you'll pay for it – the insults – you bastard, how can you even think you can inherit something – and the menaces again – we invested a lot for its maintenance, you'll have to pay us back till the last pound -.