Chapter Two #2
I glare at him, my skin still prickling from all the manhandling, and turn to look in the mirror.
The suit does look good, I’ll admit. The charcoal gray works with my skin tone, and the fit across the shoulders is close enough to pass.
I try to fix my hair with my fingers, pushing it back off my forehead, but it just flops back down, flat and limp.
“I don’t have any wax or product in it,” I mutter, frowning at my reflection. “It looks flat and messy.”
“You’re fine. It looks natural.” Hyunwoo claps me on the back hard enough to make me stumble forward a step. “Let’s go before we lose our reservation.”
The restaurant is on the top floor. We step into a sleek elevator with mirrored walls and soft lighting, and Hyunwoo presses the button for the 38th floor without looking. When the doors open, I walk out into a space that makes me stop mid-step.
Floor-to-ceiling windows wrap around the entire restaurant, framing the Seoul skyline in every direction.
The interior glows with warm wood accents and soft lighting, with an outdoor patio that curves around the building’s edge.
The host greets Hyunwoo by name, which shouldn’t surprise me, and leads us through the dining room to a table on the patio.
The city lights spread out below us, dense clusters of neon and white stretching to the horizon.
The evening air is cool but comfortable, with discreet heat lamps placed at intervals between the tables radiating a gentle warmth.
Our table has a crisp white linen tablecloth, silverware that’s heavy enough to double as a weapon, and a small vase of fresh flowers between us.
I open the menu and am immediately lost. Nothing is familiar or even pronounceable.
It’s all French and Italian names with elaborate descriptions of ingredients I’ve never heard of.
Things like “reduction of” and “confit” and “foam.” I don’t know what a foam is in the context of food and I don’t want to find out by accident.
I close the menu and slide it across the table toward Hyunwoo. “Just order for me.”
He doesn’t even question it. He picks up both menus and starts chatting with the waiter about wine pairings and seasonal specials and whether the wagyu is sourced from Kobe or Miyazaki, like it’s the most natural conversation in the world.
The waiter nods along with attentive respect.
Hyunwoo orders with the confidence of someone who’s been dining in places like this since he could hold a fork, so I sit back and let him handle it because if there’s one thing Hyunwoo takes seriously, it’s food.
The man might be lazy about most things in his life, but when it comes to eating, he approaches it with the focus and dedication of a military strategist.
While we wait, Hyunwoo pulls out his phone and leans across the table, tilting the screen so I can see. Photos of the property he’s been eyeing for his glamping resort. Rolling green hills backed by mountains, dense forest, and a lake so clear and still it looks fake.
“Look at this,” he says, swiping to the next image.
Architectural renderings of the luxury camping suites he’s been designing with some firm he hired.
They’re essentially small designer cabins with floor-to-ceiling glass walls, private outdoor hot tubs on wooden decks, king-sized beds with premium linens, and all the amenities of a five-star hotel nestled in the middle of nowhere.
“Each unit gets its own deck with a hot tub and a view of the lake. And there’s a communal lodge here—” he swipes again, “—with a restaurant, a bar, and a spa.”
“That’s not camping,” I say. “That’s a hotel in the woods.”
“It’s glamping. Gte it right.” He swipes to another photo, this one of the lake from a different angle. “And look, the lake is stocked with bass and trout. I’m going to set up a recreational fishing spot for guests. Rods, tackle, the whole setup.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Neither of us knows how to fish. The closest we’ve ever come to catching anything was that time in middle school when we tried to catch frogs in the pond on your family’s estate and you fell in face-first.”
He waves a hand dismissively. “Anyway, I’m going to have a professional fishing instructor on staff to teach guests. It’s all part of the luxury outdoor experience I’m curating.”
I give him a look. “I can’t see you gutting a fish with those hands. You use a different moisturizer for each finger.”
He grins. “I absolutely will not be gutting anything myself. The staff handles all the messy work. Guests reel them in, take photos for their social media, and then the resort’s private chef prepares it for dinner. The experience without the unpleasantness.”
“So the fish get caught, killed, and cooked, and the guests just get to feel like outdoorsmen without actually doing anything.”
“Now you’re getting it.”
I shake my head, but I’m smiling. It’s such a Hyunwoo idea. Finding a way to enjoy something without any of the inconvenient parts. And honestly, looking at the renderings, the place looks incredible. I’d stay there.
“So,” he says, putting his phone down and picking up his water glass. “What happened with that one client? The beta who cries on the weights machine.”
I groan and lean back in my chair. “Oh, that guy. Mr. Park. He came in again today. Told me he wants to look like—and I’m quoting him directly—’one of those fitness influencers with the abs and the jawline.’ His words.”
“Does he have abs?”
“He has the opposite of abs. He has whatever the antonym of abs is.”
Hyunwoo snickers.
“So I put together a beginner program for him, right? Light weights, basic compound movements, nothing crazy. And the second I hand him a ten-pound dumbbell, his eyes start watering. Not from effort. He hadn’t even started yet.
He was just holding it.” I pick up my water glass and take a drink.
“Then he tells me his knees hurt. And his back hurts. And the air conditioning is too cold. And the music is too loud. And the lights give him a headache. I’m running out of ways to motivate this man without just bodily dragging him through the workout. ”
“Have you tried bribery?”
“I’ve tried everything short of bribery and threats. At this point, I’m considering both.”
Our food arrives, and I stop talking mid-sentence.
The plates the waiter sets down in front of us look more like art installations than meals.
Careful drizzles of sauce in geometric patterns.
Microgreens placed with tweezers. A piece of meat so perfectly seared it looks like a photograph.
I pick up my fork, cut off a piece, and put it in my mouth.
I close my eyes.
Whatever this is, it might be the best thing I’ve ever eaten. The meat dissolves on my tongue, rich and buttery.
When I open my eyes, Hyunwoo is watching me with the smuggest expression I’ve ever seen on a human face.
“Good?” he asks, already knowing the answer.
“Shut up,” I say, and cut another piece.
We eat in comfortable silence for a few minutes that stems from knowing someone long enough that you don’t feel the need to fill every gap with conversation.
We pick up talking again and I’m in the middle of telling Hyunwoo about the small crisis that happened that afternoon—one of the gym guests accidentally locked himself inside a sauna when the door latch jammed, and started panicking, banging on the glass and screaming that he was being cooked alive while the front desk scrambled to find maintenance—when Hyunwoo’s phone buzzes on the table.
He glances down at the screen and his expression shifts. The amusement drains from his face like someone pulled a plug. His jaw tightens. He picks up the phone and curses under his breath.
“It’s my mother. I have to take this.” He pushes his chair back and stands.
“Go ahead,” I say, waving him off with my fork.
He walks away from the table toward the edge of the balcony railing, pressing the phone to his ear. I continue eating, because this food is too good to let get cold over someone else’s family drama, and glance up occasionally to watch him.
His posture gets more tense with each passing minute.
His free hand gestures sharply at the air, cutting sideways.
His jaw so tight I can see the muscle working from here.
He paces along the railing, three steps one way, three steps back, and his voice rises enough for fragments to carry back to the table before he catches himself and drops it again.
I can’t make out the words, but I know the tone.
It’s the one Hyunwoo only uses with his family.
Tight and controlled on the surface, harder underneath it, holding back what he actually wants to say through sheer force of will.
His mother is the only person I’ve ever seen make Hyunwoo’s easy confidence crack, and even then, he never lets it show for long.
I eat another piece of wagyu and wait.
Nearly twenty minutes later, Hyunwoo drops back into the chair across from me with a deep sigh, pushing an agitated hand through his perfectly styled hair and ruining it. His jaw is tight and his eyes have a sharp, irritated gleam.
I lift my brows over my wine glass. “I take it that didn’t go well.”
Hyunwoo shakes his head and picks up his own wine glass, taking a long drink before setting it down. “My family is on my ass. Worse than ever.” He pauses, running his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “You know how my cousin died last month?”
I nod. I’d heard about it. A car accident on the expressway, very sudden, very tragic. Though I note with some amusement that Hyunwoo could at least pretend to look a little bit sad about it instead of just looking annoyed.
“You could try to seem at least slightly broken up about it,” I say.