.  While Ban Yeo Ryung directed her eyes on him, Kwon Eun Hyung detached his lips.

  “Yeo Ryung, although they are Chun Young’s brothers, you shouldn’t expect the same atmosphere from them. They aren’t sloppy people who continuously put salt instead of sugar in their coffees like him.”


  “Uh-huh…”


  Ban Yeo Ryung nodded her head. His usual, composed voice continued.

  “They don’t bang their heads on the wall, dozing off in the morning.”


  “Yeah…”


  With downcast eyes, Ban Yeo Ryung asked, ‘What about making a slip of tongue?’ Rolling his eyes, Kwon Eun Hyung replied in a calm and orderly tone.

  “If it comes to Shin hyeong, he does it very occasionally; however, he also reacts so quickly to rapidly changing situations. Thus, it only happens in these two cases; when he’s too perplexed or drawn into Gun hyeong’s ingenious eloquence. He isn’t a chronic offender like Chun Young.”


  “Hmm…”


  Ban Yeo Ryung’s face was now outstandingly grimaced. Pouting her lips, she thought, ‘If they were the same type as Yoo Chun Young, I would never get nervous in front of them. Life ain’t easy for real…’ Kwon Eun Hyung stared at her being immersed in thought. He then let out a small giggle involuntarily.

  He continued, “The two brothers are poles apart, but if there’s one thing in common, they really care about Chun Young. That’s all.”


  “What? Then, does it mean Yoo Chun Young is a beloved youngest brother? Is he taking that kind of position?”


  “Yes, surprisingly, that’s true,” replied Kwon Eun Hyung with a swiveling smile.

  Yoo Chun Young didn’t look like a beloved youngest brother at first sight. Instead, people would easily find him as the eldest from his blunt atmosphere. If not, they might consider him who had grown up under strict discipline to not show his feelings too much. The truth was, however, completely different.

  Thinking further to that point, Kwon Eun Hyung smiled and kept on his remark.

  “The two guys are very quick-witted. In fact, they are half to blame for why Chun Young turned out to be incommunicative and expressionless now. He’s got everything he wants without saying anything, so that may have burdened him somehow.”


  “A-ha, that’s what happened.”


  Listening to the story, Ban Yeo Ryung nodded. Kwon Eun Hyung also lowered and raised his head slightly after her.

  “Yeah, so…”


  That was when Ban Yeo Ryung burst into laughter out of the blue. Kwon Eun Hyung wondered why she suddenly acted like that. The fact that Yoo Gun and Yoo Shin being horrifyingly quick-witted was the reason why he began to explain about them. The person whom he was concerned about was, none other than, Ham Donnie. It wasn’t until almost three years later that Yoo Chun Young, lately, seemed to realize his true feelings about her. Yoo Gun and Yoo Shin sensing their brother’s crush on her in the meantime should never happen.

  Thus, how could she laugh in this situation? While Kwon Eun Hyung pouted his lips in a confusion of the smart girl Ban Yeo Ryung’s sudden laughter, she turned around to look at him and dropped her remark first. Her eyes curved into a smile as if she felt excited.

  “Yoo Chun Young would be in trouble if he had a crush on someone!”


  Kwon Eun Hyung’s face soon turned pale. What she just said was so unbelievable that he asked her again.

  “What?”


  “I mean, Yoo Chun Young, he’s lucky to not have any crush or a date. If those oppas sensed their little brother having someone around him, they would nearly interrogate him about the girl. You said that they care about Yoo Chun Young so badly.”


  “Oh, yeah.

  “Yoo Chun Young isn’t a good liar, so if that happens, they would find out immediately.”


  Kwon Eun Hyung couldn’t help but respond to her, “Yeah, you hit the spot, Yeo Ryung.”


  “Huh?”


  “Uh… nothing.”


  Quickly hiding his bewildered face, Kwon Eun Hyung dropped his gaze at the floor then looked outside the window. With her eyes wide open, Ban Yeo Ryung asked, ‘Come on? What’s wrong?’ but he didn’t answer back.

  While the car was still on its way to the party, he just lifted his hand and poked the middle of his forehead, using his fingertip. He, occasionally, murmured to himself, ‘Geez, Yeo Ryung, how can you still have not noticed that…’ or ‘Would it really be okay?’


  Running a long way, the car, at last, went across the steel-barred entrance of the mansion. As the closely standing evergreens flickered out of the window, the view slowly brightened.

  With her eyes round open, Ban Yeo Ryung attached her face to the window. There she saw an unbelievably large lake inside the garden. A white-painted boat was also flowing on the large body of water.

  “Oh my god, is this really Chun Young’s house?” Ban Yeo Ryung asked like a scream.

  “Yeah, is this your first time being here?”


  “You never told me that there’s a lake inside the house! Holy Christ, what am I looking at?!”


  Yelling out those words with a blush, she attached herself to the window again. Kwon Eun Hyung stared at her being astonished of the view. He then scratched the back of his head.

  ‘Didn’t I talk about the lake to her?’ he thought. Although he couldn’t remember clearly, he might have not told her about it as she didn’t have the memory. With a smile, he then spoke about the happening when he and Yoo Chun Young rode the boat and became flustered as they dropped the paddle into the lake. The moment Ban Yeo Ryung burst out laughing, the car gently pulled over.

  The mansion, standing in the middle of the site full of trees and lake, looked more like a piece of architectural sculpture than just a house. This modern construction had white, brown, and taupe transverse lines intersecting with each other disorderly, which was seemingly a geometric artwork. Even the windows were camouflaged between the horizontal lines that the entire house didn’t look like a place to reside. So was the door attached to the corner.

  While Ban Yeo Ryung stood still awestruck, Kwon Eun Hyung came closer behind her and gently pulled her arm. As he stood in front of the door, he pressed the intercom.

  The person over the phone didn’t ask who it was. Only with a short exclamation of ‘oh’ the door suddenly opened.

  “Hey.”


  A nonchalant voice flew over the reddened air of the sunset. Putting his hand on the doorknob, Yoo Chun Young slightly nodded his head toward them.

  Yoo Chun Young, standing under the mini chandelier light, wore a stiff short-sleeved rolled-up shirt with buttons on top and narrow-legged dress pants on the bottom. Ushering them inside, he suddenly turned around and flung a question to Ban Yeo Ryung.

  “How was it?”


  He dropped a sentence that didn’t add up as always. Tilting her head, Ban Yeo Ryung tossed a question.

  “What do you mean?”


  “Eun Hyung went there to pick you up.”


  Only then did she smile quietly. He might be talking about what she felt as Kwon Eun Hyung came to the café where she was working and if he had been helped. She had wondered where his severely omitting way of speech came from, but now she learned that it was from having too quick-witted brothers. Ban Yeo Ryung felt inclined to try to understand him a little more. Looking into his blue eyes directed at her, she responded with a smile.

  “It was nice.”


  “Good for you.”


  Yoo Chun Young then turned his head to Kwon Eun Hyung and asked him a question.

  “What did you drink?”


  “I was served a cup of Americano, a hot one.”


  The look on Yoo Chun Young’s face turned a little weird. Ban Yeo Ryung, who suddenly got angry for no reason, uttered back.

  “Come on, it’s not what you think! Yoo Chun Young, how dare you.”


  Staying silent for a second, Yoo Chun Young furrowed his black eyebrows and replied at a slow pace.

  “You should only do such a thing to Eun Jiho…”


  A heavy silence hung among the three as they paused their steps. Ban Yeo Ryung and Kwon Eun Hyung then looked at each other and burst into laughter. Hitting Yoo Chun Young’s back, Ban Yeo Ryung giggled.

  “Bahaha! Yoo Chun Young, you’re so naughty to Eun Jiho!”


  “Chun Young, thanks for caring about me, but you shouldn’t sacrifice Eun Jiho to her.”


  Not only Ban Yeo Ryung but Kwon Eun Hyung also put his arm around Yoo Chun Young, which made him knit his brows even more.

  * * *

  At the time when the sun was declining, a guy was standing in the dark room with his hand on the windowsill. Over the window, the heated sun, the sky half-stained into purple hue, high walls, and the lake came into his sight. Staring at them serenely, the guy then suddenly looked back as he heard an indication of a person behind him.

  There stood a man in a black suit. The guy gazed at the black suit man with a straight face.

  The guy wasn’t seemingly a fearful person at all. He was about 180 cm tall, which could hardly say having a big physique; his radiant and handsome appearance was far apart from that of a tough or wild guy. Instead, he had the face of a man who would appear in insurance ads looking kind, reliable, and not causing any harm to others at all. What he was wearing right now was also a soft navy suit that could boost his charms.

  However, when he adjusted his neat, decently styled black hair and threw a frosty yet silent gaze at the black suit man, his shoulders trembled with tension.