Step Into My World (and see)

33. The truth?

Jeongguk was busy preparing two Machiattos while Hyungsik helped him arrange a couple of pieces of cake for the two new customers. 

One of them was someone he knew. He wondered in the back of his mind if he was supposed to call his husband and tell him that his manager was in their cafe. He decided against it because he knew his husband himself would arrive soon anyway. 

When he went to hand them their order, he found Seojoon sitting along with the two of them, turning all mushy as he talked to the other man on the table. 

That was the new boyfriend that Seojoon kept talking about, he supposed. 

Park Bogum. 

He remembered another Park Bogum that he knew. One that he had heard of. The person who kept reminding him of his existence every single time his husband took his shirt off. 

If only he could get his hands on that man. He would make sure all of those days he had spent working out at the gym wouldn't go to waste. 

"Ggukie!!" Seojoon's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Meet my boyfriend. This is Bogum. Bogum, this is Jeongguk," he said. 

Jeongguk gave him a half-bow. "Nice to meet you," he said and looked at Dae Shin, "I know you," he said. Dae Shin chuckled humourlessly, but Jeongguk didn't pick that up. "Of course you do," Dae Shin mumbled. 

Seojoon chuckled awkwardly and let Dae Shin's apparent annoyance go, supposing the man had a bad day. 

"You are quite famous. I know you too," Bogum said. Jeongguk didn't know what to say to that. 

Seojoon chuckled again and came to Jeongguk's rescue. "Ggukie, go and clean the kitchen," he said and Jeongguk gladly left the place. The two of them didn't feel too friendly. Unlike how Dae Shin behaved with him when Taehyung was present, he didn't feel comfortable enough to talk to him in his husband's absence. 

He went back to the kitchen and spent some time cleaning it along with Sunghwan, while Hyungsik and Wooshik sat down to have a coffee. 

"I don't like that guy," Hyungsik mumbled after a while. 

"Huh?"

"Me too," Wooshik and Sunghwan said at the same time. "He's a little creepy," Wooshik continued, "I didn't notice it before, but I don't like the way he looks at our Joon," he said. 

"I know right!! I also don't like the way he talks to the rest of us like we are insects or some....thing," Hyungsik said and got up after hearing the cafe's bell ring, signalling a newcomer. 

He didn't have to go and check out to know who it was. All he had to do was look at the clock. 

"Ggukie, your man's here. Bye," he said. 

"Bye," Jeongguk mumbled to the three of them and hurried inside the inner room to get changed. 

Unlike every day, he didn't find his husband chatting away with his friends in the kitchen by the time he finished changing. Instead, the kitchen was empty, and he could hear the others call Taehyung out hesitantly. 

Frowning, he threw his bag over his shoulder and walked out of the kitchen, and found his husband standing frozen, staring wide-eyed at Seojoon's boyfriend. Jeongguk didn't understand why he was shaking like a leaf, but he knew for sure that his husband needed him at the moment. 

Thus, he hurried forward and stood next to him, throwing his hand around his waist to try and stop the trembling a little, but Taehyung didn't even acknowledge him.