“Kkokko is sooo pretty, and looks like thiiis!”
The six-year-old little client twisted around shyly as he held out his sketchbook. Drawn on the page was a young chicken with no comb and nothing but an abundance of fluffy white feathers.
“How old is Kkokko?”
At Seojin’s question, the little client held up three fingers.
“Three years old?”
Older than I expected. Then again, if the child was this attached to it, that probably meant they had been together for quite a while.
“Umm, nooo.”
“He means three months.”
Before the little client could even answer, Yoon Haegang casually cut in.
“Ah…….”
“Ahem, ahem. Right, I see. You’re really good at drawing.”
Embarrassed, Seojin scratched the bridge of his nose with his index finger and praised the child’s drawing skills. It was meant to ease the tension of the little client, whose eyes were darting back and forth between the two men.
Even in Seojin’s eyes, Yoon Haegang was a little excessively intimidating. With such delicate features paired with a physique that was anything but delicate, it was understandable for the child to react like that.
“Hee…….”
The sight of him smiling with a missing front tooth was so cute that a faint smile appeared on Seojin’s lips as well. It made him think of Euni, who was probably having the time of her life at daycare right now.
“Okay, then can you lend me that for a little while?”
“This?”
The little client hugged his sketchbook tightly to his chest and gave him a wary look.
“Yeah. I think it’ll help us a lot when we look for Kkokko.”
“Umm…….”
“And our little client should wait at home. Okay?”
He heard a scoff from beside him, but Seojin didn’t turn around. Calming down the little client, who had fallen into serious thought, came first.
It bothered him that a preschooler who should have been either at kindergarten or daycare at this hour was wandering around a playground.
“Will you find Kkokko for me?”
The adorable question came from the gap left by the child’s missing front tooth, and Seojin immediately nodded.
“Yeah. That’s why these uncles came here, so don’t worry.”
“Okaaay…….”
Seojin accepted the sketchbook the little client handed over with a smile. Now it was time to send the child home.
“Where’s your house?”
“Ooover there…….”
Perhaps having empty hands felt awkward, because the little client fidgeted as he pointed. Seojin followed his finger with his gaze. The residential alley was packed with similar-looking low-rise apartment buildings and villas, making it difficult to tell exactly which one he meant.
“Okay, then let’s go home and wait there. Here, hold Uncle’s hand.”
“Okaaay…….”
Perhaps Seojin’s constant gentle chatter had helped him relax, because the little client readily took his hand. Matching the child’s short steps, the two walked side by side down the alley. Yoon Haegang followed one step behind them.
As Seojin walked in the direction the child had pointed, checking the street numbers along the way, he tilted his head at the strangely familiar road name.
‘What is it? Where have I seen this before?’
He was wondering about it when the little client’s shout snapped him back to attention.
“We’re heeere!”
It was a three-story low-rise apartment building.
“You live here?”
“Yes!”
The little client answered energetically, then wriggled around as he pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket. He picked one out and expertly inserted it into the lock. Seeing him unlock the door so skillfully, Seojin unconsciously clapped his hands.
“Wow, you’re really good at that!”
“Hehe…….”
Happy at being praised, the little client grinned with his missing tooth showing. Seojin stroked his head and pushed open the heavy front door for him.
“Okay, now stay quietly at home and…….”
He had been about to tell him to wait when his eyes met head-on with someone coming down the stairs. The other person seemed startled as well, awkwardly stopping mid-step and freezing in place.
“Seyoung hyung!”
At the little client’s delighted call, Seojin looked at the man again with renewed attention.
A flawless, snow-white face without so much as a speck on it, features that looked as though someone had painstakingly sculpted them, a graceful neck like a deer’s, and a slender, supple body.
He gave off a fresh, unmistakable aura that practically announced to anyone who looked at him, I’m an omega.
But Seojin had another reason for paying attention to him.
‘So that’s why Yoon Haegang suddenly insisted on coming with me. He knew Shin Seyoung lived here.’
Seojin had been wondering why the street address felt so familiar. Of course it did. It was the home address of the main bottom whose file he had been diligently reading back at the office.
Seojin’s gaze naturally shifted toward Yoon Haegang.
He had already been staring at Shin Seyoung for some time.
Wasn’t this exactly the kind of scene where a drama’s ending theme should suddenly start playing?
Unfortunately, reality offered nothing but an awkward silence.
“Jun! Who are those people?”
And with Shin Seyoung even shooting them a suspicious look, cold sweat ran down Seojin’s back.
The little client’s answer was important here.
But perhaps the child had gotten flustered, because he only rolled his eyes around helplessly.
This was where quick thinking came in handy!
“Our little friend said he lost Kkokko, so we’ve been helping him look for it. Right, Jun?”
“Y-yes…….”
“Kkokko?”
Shin Seyoung looked doubtful.
“Yes. But I thought it would be better for Jun to wait at home, so we brought him back.”
When Seojin spoke with a sociable smile on his lips, Shin Seyoung’s suspicion seemed to ease somewhat. The fact that the little client was nodding enthusiastically probably helped.
“Did Kkokko run away again?”
“Yeah.”
Apparently, this wasn’t Kkokko’s first little outing.
“What should we do? Hyung has to go out for work right now, so I can’t help you look…….”
“It’s okay. Uncle said he’d find Kkokko! Jun even paid—”
The little client cheerfully began to explain, his missing tooth making his pronunciation slightly lisped, that he had paid them. Seojin cut in again before he could finish.
“Jun said he’d help us, but! I refused. It’s dangerous for a little kid to keep wandering around outside. Right, Jun?”
“Y-yes…….”
Jun fidgeted with the hand holding his bunch of keys, completely unaware that he had nearly made a mistake.
It was actually because he liked the way Seojin gently rubbed his shoulder, but Seojin himself was too busy watching Shin Seyoung and Yoon Haegang’s reactions to notice.
“Then please contact me here once you find it.”
As he said that, Shin Seyoung casually recited his phone number.
Without realizing it, Seojin glanced at Yoon Haegang.
He still couldn’t take his eyes off Shin Seyoung. His gaze was so plainly filled with personal interest that Seojin was the one who felt embarrassed instead.
After saying goodbye to Jun, Seojin and Yoon Haegang somehow ended up walking out of the alley together with Shin Seyoung.
“Kkokko is probably hiding at the playground. Try looking there.”
Just as they emerged from the alley and reached the point where it met the playground, Shin Seyoung suddenly spoke.
“The playground?”
Seojin looked toward the place where they had met the little client earlier.
It was a small area containing nothing but a slide, swings, a seesaw, and monkey bars. There didn’t seem to be anywhere a chicken could hide.
More importantly, if it had been there, Seojin couldn’t understand why the little client hadn’t found it earlier.
“There. It’s probably somewhere around there.”
Shin Seyoung pointed toward one spot again.
Following his finger, Seojin noticed the red roof over a block-shaped slide structure.
“Lately, it’s gotten really into flapping its wings, so it keeps leaving the house and climbing in there.”
“Jun doesn’t know?”
“No.”
“Why……?”
“Jun is scared of climbing up high.”
“Ahh…….”
The slide was fairly tall.
So that was why he hadn’t known.
“Thank you for the help.”
“It’s nothing. Then I’ll leave it to you.”
Apparently, Shin Seyoung really did have somewhere urgent to be. After saying goodbye, he hurried down the street.
Seojin alternated between watching his retreating figure and Yoon Haegang, who still couldn’t take his eyes off him.
‘Usually, isn’t this where the main top helps out and something happens to break the ice between them?’
Maybe because Yoon Haegang was only the sub top, their encounter simply ended like this.
Having come to that conclusion all on his own, Seojin immediately approached the slide.
Sure enough, he could vaguely make out some kind of shape inside the cage-like structure.
“Kkokko.”
When he called its name, he heard the sound of wings flapping.
At the same time, several white feathers fluttered gently down.
“Kkokko, let’s go home.”
A moment later, a head popped out through a small opening.
Sure enough, a chicken that looked quite similar to the one the little client had drawn tilted its head this way and that.
‘The problem is how we’re supposed to get that thing down…….’
He also had to take into account that the roof was higher than expected, and no matter how much Seojin stood on tiptoe, he still couldn’t reach it.
“How did Shin Seyoung get it down before?”
There was nothing to stand on, and Seojin had no idea how to lure it out.
While he stood there blankly staring up at the ceiling, he suddenly sensed someone behind him.
Then a long arm shot upward past him.
Startled, Seojin turned his head.
Using his considerable height, Yoon Haegang had captured Kkokko and was pulling it out.
“Whoa…….”
He subdued it in one go.
A yandere top really was built different.
With that somewhat random thought running through his head, Seojin clapped his hands.