“That’s funny…. Looks like you still light up at the mere mention of Yeehyeon’s name?”
“What do you mean, ‘still’? We’re in the thick of our honeymoon phase, you know.”
“Ah, yes. Of course. Is there anyone in Bali who doesn’t know you two are newlyweds?”
You make it so obvious, he added in a mumble, as if to himself, but it was clearly meant to be heard.
“I know too! Kun and Yeehyeon are newlyweds!”
“See? Even our Leo knows.”
Leo, who was sitting next to Seo Yeehan, shot his arm up and exclaimed proudly, making both Liu and Seo Yeehan laugh.
“Yeehyeon’s been working, so you must have been watching the baby all by yourself, hyung?”
“Leo helped me watch him.”
“Even if he is my son, watching him alone is seriously tough.”
“What’s ‘tough’?”
Leo’s eyes sparkled as he looked up at Seo Yeehan. With a look that said oops, Seo Yeehan stroked the boy’s head.
“Ah… It’s nothing, the ahjussi misspoke. Sorry.”
While Seo Yeehan was sweating bullets with Leo, Liu poured the hot water to make drip coffee. Just as he finished brewing two cups, including his own, and set the mugs on the table, Liu’s phone rang from the living room.
“I’ll get it!”
Recognizing the ringtone as Liu’s, Leo quickly hopped off his chair and ran to the living room. The child, who returned in an instant with the phone, looked proud to have been of help. Liu stroked the boy’s head.
“Thanks, Leo. Oh? It’s your dad.”
The caller was Leo’s father.
“No, I don’t wanna go yet! I don’t want to go.”
Sensing it was a call to come home, Leo leaned against the table, rubbing his face with a pout. Liu stroked the boy’s hair as he answered the call. As expected, it was a summons to return home.
“Your dad says to stop playing and come to the restaurant.”
The fusion Korean restaurant Leo’s father ran was a three-minute walk from here, and Leo’s family lived on the third floor of that building.
“Aww, I want to play with Parang more.”
Having grown quite attached to the baby he had only met for the second time today, Leo went over to Seo Yeehan’s side and fiddled with the baby’s tiny foot.
“He said he bought you a bicycle. The one you wanted.”
At the word “bicycle,” the boy’s attitude changed completely. His two eyes, sparkling with glee, whipped around to look at Liu.
“A bicycle? That’s daebak, daebak!”
Leo, who had run halfway to the door, stopped short and came back. He stood holding the edge of the table and looked up at Seo Yeehan. His expression was a rather polite request.
“Ahjussi, can I give Parang a goodbye kiss?”
“Of course, you can.”
After planting a very careful kiss on the baby’s forehead, Leo properly said his goodbyes to Kun and Seo Yeehan this time. Then he dashed toward the door again.
Watching Leo’s retreating back with a smile, Seo Yeehan brought the mug to his lips and asked.
“‘Daebak.’ Where did he learn a word like that?”
“Probably from Yuni.”
Baek Yuni had also left ‘The Hands’ with Yeehyeon and moved to Bali. Now even more competent with her accumulated experience, she was in charge of the gallery’s overall operations here. Along with her partner, Michelle.
Michelle, who had worked as a designer in Paris, had joined Liu’s team and was in charge of all visual media design for the gallery.
Jungle, river, sea, rice paddies, lakes…. Utterly captivated by Bali’s diverse nature, Yuni and Michelle were thoroughly enjoying their life here, working passionately on weekdays and taking short trips on weekends.
“But really, it must have been so hard for you to watch the baby alone, hyung. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You said you’d buy me a meal. Make it an expensive one.”
“I should. I’ll buy good ingredients and cook for you myself.”
“I was just saying. Watching Parang isn’t that hard. How could it be hard when he’s this cute, right, Parang?”
As Liu, sitting opposite him, cooed at the baby, the baby met Liu’s eyes and giggled.
“You have a surprising knack for childcare, hyung. Even the way you hold him is so stable. You don’t seem like someone who only babysits once in a while.”
“I haven’t had many chances to be around kids. It’s a bit surprising to me, too.”
“At first, you didn’t know what to do when I handed him to you.”
“He was so small, I was scared I’d hurt him.”
“Now when you go out with Parang, everyone must think you’re the dad, right?”
“I didn’t know I’d be like this either. Parang is lovely. Is it because he follows me so well? When I see him gripping my shirt with his tiny hand, it gets me all choked up.”
Liu’s gaze was warm as he watched the baby, who was nestled in his father’s arms, playing by patting the tabletop with his two small hands. Seo Yeehan watched Liu and stroked the baby’s soft hair.
“Imagine how much lovelier your own child would be.”
“……”
Seo Yeehan’s voice was suggestive. It wasn’t a passing remark. So Liu couldn’t just brush it off as a joke. As Liu only sipped his coffee, Seo Yeehan asked as if he had made up his mind.
“You and Yeehyeon have no plans yet, hyung?”
“Yeehyeon is still twenty-six. And we’ve been married for less than half a year.”
“Yeehyeon might be twenty-six, but you’re thirty-six, hyung.”
“These days, thirty-six is about the right age for marriage. Look at the people around me. Manager Han, Choi Inwoo, Shushu. They’re all my age, and I’m the only one who’s married.”
Liu spoke with a mix of laughter, wearing his characteristic confident look. Seo Yeehan thought about it for a moment, then nodded.
“Well, that’s true.”
“Ah, I should pack Parang’s dishes in advance. Our little angel ate his baby food so well today. Right, Parang?”
Getting up from his chair, Liu stroked the baby’s round cheek. Drooling on his bib, the little one looked up at Liu and beamed, flailing his arms and legs. It was impossible not to smile back at such a sight.
The weekend was the day off for the helper who took care of Liu and Yeehyeon’s household. Liu picked up the baby’s dishes, which he had washed himself, from the drying rack. They were still a little damp.
“Still, you know Yeehyeon wants one, right?”
“……”
Liu’s hand, which was drying the dishes with a paper towel, paused for a moment. Without turning his head to look back, Liu replied in a nonchalant tone.
“That’s something we can think about in a year or two. We can still enjoy our honeymoon phase, just the two of us, for a little longer, can’t we?”
“The idea that having a baby makes the honeymoon phase disappear is a prejudice. Can’t you tell by looking at me and Morae?”
Liu chuckled at Seo Yeehan’s boastful nerve. It was an irrefutably true statement. While raising their child, Seo Yeehan and Lim Morae seemed to have grown even closer than before. Not just as comrades co-parenting. They were more grateful for each other’s existence and seemed to find a new and different charm in the other’s considerate actions.
Liu, too, was more confident than anyone.
There was no way the sexual tension in his relationship with Yeehyeon would disappear just because they had a baby. There was no way they would stop finding each other sexy.
If a baby were born, they would of course hire a trustworthy full-time babysitter, but that didn’t mean a parent’s touch wouldn’t be needed at all. Even after finally putting a constantly crying baby to sleep and being completely exhausted, he would still yearn for Yeehyeon’s skin. Yeehyeon would still be attractive even with baby drool all over his shoulder, wearing a t-shirt with a stretched-out neckline from the baby pulling on it. Every time he looked at Yeehyeon like that, he would feel a strong sexual desire out of affection.
Wouldn’t it be obvious? How could Yeehyeon, who would bear and raise his child with him, not be sexy?
Saying he was putting off having a baby to enjoy the honeymoon phase longer was just an excuse.
“Morae said it. That I’m sexiest when I’m holding Parang and kissing his tiny little head to put him to sleep.”
“Yes, of course. I’m sure she did.”
Liu chuckled as he packed the dried dishes into a dedicated bag with a teddy bear design on it.
“I guarantee you, if you see Yeehyeon and your baby sleeping side by side, you might just cry from happiness, hyung.”
“……”
This time, Liu couldn’t say anything. Seo Yeehan’s words had made him imagine it.
Yeehyeon and his baby. The baby and Yeehyeon, sleeping together.
There could be no greater happiness. At least, not among any happiness he could imagine right now. Even without seeing it before his eyes, the mere thought of it made his heart ache with overwhelming emotion.
“I don’t think that a child is the completion of love, either. But it’s not like you two are planning on not having one at all.”
“Yeah, that’s not it.”
Zipping up the teddy bear bag, Liu returned to the front of the table with the most nonchalant expression he could manage.
“Your thoughts are obvious, hyung.”
Soothing the baby, who had started to fuss, by bouncing his thigh, Seo Yeehan put on a sly expression.
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