“And aren’t you totally the Executive Director’s type, Song? He loves young experts, innovation, and all that stuff. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to make an impression.”

　　“Just hold on a…”

　　They were all in the same boat, weren’t they? Withering away in front of their monitors. How could they do this to him?

　　Granted, strictly speaking, Iho wasn’t technically in the same boat as them.

　　“Honestly? Even if it’s just a one-off event, teaching people from our training cohort or senior colleagues would be awkward. But you came from outside, Song. You’re a perfect fit. Plus, don’t you have a pretty hefty salary? I don’t know the exact figures, but let’s be real here.”

　　“…”

　　Among the three team leads gathered here, thirty-three-year-old Song Iho was the youngest. The other two were in their late thirties.

　　Dev Team Lead Song Iho had completed an integrated master’s and doctoral program at Hanguk University before being scouted as a manager. Because of that, his pay scale was slightly different from everyone else. Long story short, he hadn’t climbed the traditional ladder from an entry-level position through open recruitment, meaning he had no training cohort and no direct senior or junior colleagues at the company.

　　Naturally, this also meant he had no friends like Kim or Nam to form a united front with.

　　How was a special hire supposed to survive this kind of indignity?

　　“Fine… I’ll do it.”

　　Another annoying task of the worst kind had just been added to his plate. One that was completely useless for his performance review and ate into his personal time after work.

　　Everything today seemed destined to go wrong at every turn.

* * *

　　Drained after a long day, even pressing the elevator button felt like a chore. Iho leaned heavily against the elevator wall, then trudged out onto the eighteenth floor when the doors opened. Stopping in front of Unit 1802, directly across from Unit 1801, he punched in the keypad code at a snail’s pace.

　　Inside, the mess he had left behind before heading out to work was untouched. Iho scooped up the receipt he had emptied from his pocket that morning and tossed it into the trash. Throwing his work clothes down in front of the bathroom, he changed into an oversized T-shirt and sweatpants and stepped into the living room, then collapsed onto the sofa.

　　“Ughhh…”

　　He really was getting older. He had been picked apart over nothing and had unwanted tasks dumped on him countless times, both in the lab and at the office. But situations like that were starting to take a completely different physical toll on him.

　　Of course, instead of whining or fuming…

　　“Gotta do it. What choice do I have…?”

　　He had mastered the art of minimizing mental exhaustion, at the very least.

　　As hungry as he was, thinking about what to eat took too much effort. Glued to the sofa like a phone on a wireless charging pad, Iho recharged his depleted batteries. But it was still agonizingly slow, as if he were plugged into a charger with the wrong wattage.

　　The quiet apartment where he lived alone let in every sound from the hallway outside the metal door. Like the sound of the elevator stopping on his floor, followed by the chime of the doorbell from the unit across the hall.

　　The rustle of plastic that followed came through just as clearly. From the crisp, paper-like crinkling of the bag, it was definitely food delivery.

　　Crinkle, crinkle, crinkle.

　　Whoever was out there lingered in the hallway for a good while. Probably just checking the receipt to make sure the order was right. Iho opened his eyes and pushed himself upright.

　　If he didn’t have the energy to order anything and couldn’t even be bothered to choose what to eat, time to just raid whatever his neighbor got!

　　Iho walked to the entryway and yanked the door open.

　　“Hey, let me order whatever you want on my phone. We can eat what you just got…”

　　…together, and have the rest when it gets here… The suggestion Iho had been about to make died in his throat. Cha Mingyu, the tenant of Unit 1801 directly across the hall, broke into a wide grin and stopped rubbing the empty plastic bag between his hands.

　　“Hurry on over, Songi.”

　　Iho had taken the bait hook, line, and sinker.

　　“Ugh…”

　　Crossing the hallway in front of the elevator in less than five strides, Iho reached the opposite apartment. Leaving his worn slippers in the entryway and stepping into someone else’s home didn’t feel awkward at all. Just familiar.

　　Grinning in a way he never did at work, Mingyu performed an even smoother moonwalk across his living room floor.

　　“Aargh! Screw you!”

　　This wasn’t the office, and neither of them was Dev Team Lead Song or Marketing Team Lead Cha. So, Iho threw a straight punch right at Cha Mingyu’s back without hesitation, the stamina he thought was gone reignited by sheer animosity. Unfazed, Mingyu dodged with a moonwalk worthy of a concert stage.

　　“You know the Mutt’s temper! Stop messing around at work, you… What’s this?”

　　Following Mingyu as he retreated toward the kitchen table, Iho saw a meal had already been laid out. Two sets of utensils were placed opposite each other.

　　“Have a seat.”

　　“…”

　　Mingyu wrapped both hands around Iho’s waist and guided him toward the table. Feeling the heat radiating from those large hands through his thin T-shirt, Iho bit his lip.

　　Cha Mingyu, you bastard. You’re only getting away with this because it’s me…

　　“…”

　　If it were anyone else, you’d have been packed into a shipping container and hauled off to the Netherlands to get married ages ago…!

　　Spicy braised chicken, fiery red and sure to melt away the day’s stress in an instant, sat in the center of the table. After fifteen years together, Iho knew perfectly well that Mingyu preferred sweet braised chicken over the spicy kind. This dish had been chosen purely to suit Iho’s tastes.

　　Before sitting down, Mingyu pulled two cans from his beer fridge. Iho looked at the man sitting across from him.

　　Once again, he forced down a sigh he must have swallowed thousands of times over the past fifteen years. Today, that sigh felt noticeably hotter than usual.

　　He didn’t feel bitter about his unrequited love. That kind of resentment belonged to people who fell in love in a single, sudden moment. The kind of love people would have avoided if they could turn back time.

　　Iho’s unrequited love was more like an unavoidable speed bump. Even if he avoided one thing, an accident was bound to happen the next time anyway. Even if Mingyu hadn’t cleverly shielded him from Gye today, Iho would have fallen for him at the sight of the comforting meal laid out in this apartment. And even without that, he would have fallen for him all over again because of something Mingyu would do tomorrow. So how could he be mad?

　　Cha Mingyu’s kindness was impossible to predict or avoid. And today, that kindness felt a little warmer than usual, making Iho’s heart flutter just that much more.

　　“Hey, Mingyu.”

　　“Yeah?”

　　Iho picked up a piece of spicy chicken and muttered under his breath.

　　“…If you don’t have any off-site meetings tomorrow, dinner’s on me.”

　　“I’m ordering something expensive.”

　　“Suit yourself.”

　　“Ooh. Now I’m really curious about your salary.”

　　“Ugh… It’s not that high, okay? The rumors just blew it out of proportion.”

　　“Hmm? Why, did someone say something again?”

　　Mingyu asked casually around a mouthful of food, his smooth cheeks bulging. Slowly, Iho recounted what had happened that day. As he listened, Mingyu kept his eyes fixed on Iho, while Iho’s gaze drifted over the side dishes and rice.

　　“So the next team I’m working with isn’t yours, but another dev team?”

　　“Yeah… For now.”

　　With that coding class or whatever dumped on top of his existing workload, his plate was already full. There was no bandwidth to take on a new project.

　　“Hmm. That’s good to hear. I’ve been holding back on making too many empty promises so my poor Songi-Songi wouldn’t suffer, but I guess now I can toss them around freely for a while.”

　　“…What.”

　　“Marketing gets the credit when a product sells, and the dev team takes the hit if deadlines or features get missed. But it’s not my problem if my little Songi’s not on the line.”

　　“Oh for… Nam and Kim are going to complain.”

　　“Let them. I’ll avenge my poor Songi-Songi and his lack of talking skills.”

　　Mingyu clasped his hands and rested his chin on them.

　　“You think someone who talks for a living would ever lose an argument to a tech nerd? Just watch. You’ll see just how much I’ve been letting you win, Songi.”

　　Well… Okay, he didn’t look like he would lose to anyone. One of the knots in Iho’s chest dissolved as the fizz of the beer washed it down.

　　The two exchanged a few more conversations as they ate.

　　Idle chatter. Topics second nature to both of them. That sort of thing.

　　“Oh, right. Hey, Songi. Did the landlady contact you by any chance?”

　　“No. Why?”

　　“Our extended lease is up this winter. I was wondering what to do.”

　　“…There’s almost a year left. Isn’t it too early to decide?”

　　“Better than scrambling at the last minute.”

　　The two units across the hall from each other, located on the eighteenth floor of Building 104, in an old apartment complex fifteen minutes by car from Taejang Electronics, were owned by the same elderly woman. When Iho was looking for a place near the office, Mingyu had tagged along to visit real estate agencies, where they had just happened to cross paths with the wealthy old lady.

　　“Are you two friends?”

　　“Uh, yeah.”

　　“No pets?”

　　“No, ma’am.”

　　“If you both move in, I’ll give you a good deal.”

　　Mingyu and Iho had eagerly jumped at the offer. And so, the two had remained neighbors separated by just three steps for four years running.

　　Over fifteen years, most relationships faded as people went out into the world and made new connections. Yet because they had gone to the same high school, the same university, and now worked at the same company, not to mention spending the last four years in a strange sort of cohabitation, their bond had endured without any serious trouble.

　　If anything had changed, it was that the way they spoke to each other had softened over time. In their teens and twenties, their snappy remarks had seemed tied up in something resembling pride. That wasn’t to say that they had lost their pride now, but they knew each other too well for it to be necessary anymore.

　　By the same token, denying his crush on Mingyu had become pointless for Iho.

　　With easy familiarity, the two joked around, badmouthed their annoying bosses, and chatted about everyday life.

　　“So, Songi-Songi, what are you doing this weekend?”

　　They also shared much of each other’s time.

　　“Going to Yang’s wedding on Saturday, then resting on Sunday, probably.”

　　“Oh, right. You know there’s an afterparty too, right?”

　　“An afterparty…? For a wedding?”

　　“Apparently they rented out a place so their single friends can hang out afterward. Didn’t you hate that kind of thing?”

　　“The hell? People do that these days?”

　　“Yang and his wife love partying, and apparently it’s a trend.”

　　Mingyu played a UTube video between them. The venue looked like an ordinary wine bar, but flashing lights gave it a club-like atmosphere. In the video, the bride and groom each grabbed a friend by the hand and pushed them together, and the two friends danced to loud music. Before long, they were close enough for their chests to touch, drawing cheers from the crowd. Then another couple was brought together, and…

　　Wait. That was… God, no.

　　Iho got the idea at this point, so he desperately wished Mingyu would turn the video off. Cha Mingyu was a friend he had known since their school days. Watching this felt like watching porn with a brother. Even though Mingyu was his unrequited crush, Iho had never really thought of him sexually. He didn’t have much of a sex drive to begin with, so he had just assumed his feelings were mostly platonic. …Probably.

　　Iho’s gaze shifted from the screen to the prominent wrist bone supporting the phone, then traveled up the arm to the thin loungewear T-shirt. The broad shoulders filling out the seams, the curve of the collarbone visible beneath the neckline, the chest, the waist.

　　…Or maybe he was wrong? Had he… thought about it?

　　“See? Told you it wasn’t your style.”

　　As Mingyu put the phone away, Iho lowered his guilty gaze, pretending to take a spoonful of rice. He hadn’t realized that, somewhere along the way, desires like these had taken root. He’d always thought he just liked Mingyu. Not… Whatever this was.

　　“…What about you, Cha? You going?”

　　“Heard Yang’s bride-to-be used to work at an agency. Can’t hurt to build connections?”

　　Mingyu had watched the same video, yet he wasn’t particularly fazed. Regardless of what he said, though, could networking in a place like that truly be as innocent as it sounded?

　　“Then maybe I’ll go too…”

　　Iho mumbled. Mingyu rested his chin on the table, watching him. It was a small movement, but with his large frame, he was suddenly right in Iho’s space.

　　“Sure. Don’t worry. With everyone from work there, it won’t be as wild as that video. If you’re going to be there, might as well meet some people. Come on. You’re thirty-three. How can you get so shy just watching a dance video?”

　　“I’m not shy.”

　　“Well, I guess if you start dating, I would get pretty bored.”

　　“…”

　　The sweet and spicy chicken suddenly tasted a little bitter.

　　“…What about you, Mingyu?”

　　“You know I’m in no position to date.”

　　“Minjeong is starting school soon, so why not?”

　　“You sound like you’re trying to marry off a widower. Do you want me to see someone, Songi?”

　　Of course not, dumbass. God, you’ve been stomping all over the heart of the guy who has a crush on you all night.

　　Even though he had resigned himself to never confessing his feelings to Mingyu, Iho couldn’t begin to fathom how far he would spiral if he actually had to watch that happen.

　　“…It’s your choice.”

　　Even so, as a friend, that was the only answer he could give.

　　“…”

　　Iho felt Mingyu’s steady gaze on him. Mingyu hadn’t the faintest idea how Iho felt. If he did, he wouldn’t invite him into his home without a second thought or cook meals for him. Nor would he lean in close, filling his field of vision.

　　Iho was the one who lost the staring contest. Reaching out, he gathered Mingyu’s empty bowl along with his own.

　　“I’ll do the dishes.”