A Dog's Preference

"Oh!"

Blinking rapidly, Haeseo found Ruby standing in front of her before she knew it.

He looked far too composed to be the same man who had just swatted the phone right out of her hand as if it were a piece of garbage.

Tatatak. The phone tumbled across the sand and came to a stop.

"Are you insane? I just bought that yesterday!"

While the man went to retrieve his phone, Ruby planted himself squarely in front of Haeseo.

Yikes, his mood was absolutely foul. With those heavy brows and sharp eyes, Ruby's face turned genuinely frightening whenever he went stone-faced.

"I'm sorry, Team Leader."

Without a word of reply, Ruby turned and seized her wrist, dragging her back the way they'd come.

Is that man's phone going to be okay? He's not following us, is he? Haeseo craned her neck to glance behind them, and the stride in front of her came to an abrupt halt.

"Is that your type?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"A guy built thick as a bear like that. Is that your type or not?"

"Um…"

Is he my type? Haeseo tilted her head, trying to picture the man. Hmm. She'd barely spared him a glance, so all that surfaced was his stomach—the way it had jutted out yet still looked firm. "Honestly, I don't follow the bear part."

"Follow what?"

"What part of that is a bear? Though I guess he's not quite a pig, either."

"Haeshi. That's not what I asked you."

Just as Ruby's patience was about to bottom out, Haeseo answered.

"I like dogs."

"Dogs?"

"Yes. Big ones, like a Doberman. Shoulders packed with muscle, but slim through the chest and waist—you know, that kind of build. Mm, with shoulders like that, a dress shirt would hang way too loose, so you'd have to get the waist tailored and—eep!"

Mid-ramble, sketching the silhouette with her hands, Haeseo clapped both palms over her mouth.

"I was not calling you a dog, Team Leader. I'm sorry."

The example she'd rattled off was, after all, Ruby's notorious body-type problem—a fitting-room headache Haeseo was obligated to deal with every single time he ordered new clothes.

She ducked her head, sneaking a peek at him, and her eyes went round. Ruby had flinched his gaze away and buried his face in one enormous hand.

She could have sworn the tips of his ears had gone red, but it was impossible to keep studying her boss while he rushed her along with a curt never mind, let's go.

Fortunately, the Muscle Beach event was a roaring success, the heat of youthful energy and the size of the prizes feeding off each other.

Men who'd stripped off their shirts lined up in droves at the challenge zone. Since the course was designed to stoke every exerciser's competitive streak, there were plenty of impressive physiques in the crowd.

As challenger after challenger failed to clear a particular section and dropped out in a line, the event MC whipped up the onlookers into a festive frenzy.

Haeseo followed Ruby's gaze to the course.

"Bear. Grasshopper."

"……"

"Pig. Monkey. Wild boar."

"……"

"Juiced-up gorilla. Mm. Bloated cat."

He's not a kindergartner on a zoo field trip. Ruby was cataloguing the animals as each man failed and shuffled out of the zone.

"……What are you doing?"

Haeseo, holding his jacket draped over one arm, shot him a sidelong glare.

"What a shame, though."

A strangely smug look on his face, Ruby matched her eye level and grinned.

"No dog in the bunch."

"Ex—excuse me?"

"Here. Nobody but me."

He pointed his long index finger at his own face, smiling with childlike innocence—wide enough to show every single tooth.

Thump, thump, thump, thump. Wh-what? Why is my heart pounding like this? Is it because Baek Ruby just admitted with his own mouth that he's a dog? Am I that happy? Or is it because he caught me trash-talking him in my head?

No. She tried her hardest to pretend she didn't understand that the "dog" he meant was the exact body type she'd just described as her preference—but there was no way she could pull that off.

Having this kind of conversation with Baek Ruby of all people suddenly felt impossibly strange and mortifying. Back when they were young, he'd been the little brother who trailed after her everywhere. Now he was the boss she waited on hand and foot. And yet—

"The staff are all watching us pretending not to, so watch what you say."

Haeseo muttered the warning, eyes lowered.

"I hired you as a secretary, not a hall monitor."

Ruby straightened back up, his face set in a sulk. The word hall monitor stung just enough that Haeseo rubbed her forehead for no good reason.

Word came that the catering boxes for the staff had arrived, and Haeseo headed to the edge of the beach, walking back alongside the delivery courier. All that remained was for Ruby to accept the boxes, make a show of gracious thanks, and she'd be free to return to the hotel. After pointing the courier to the drop-off spot, Haeseo looked around for Ruby.

He wasn't near the event grounds. He was standing far off to the side.

Wh-what?

Alone with a woman. The woman, dressed in nothing but a bikini, was holding out her phone, and Ruby accepted it with perfect ease.

Just give me your number and I'll leave you alone. The memory of the man who'd asked her for exactly that flashed through her mind. That was clearly what this looked like, right? And if so, then—

If anything happens to Ruby… well,Secretary Wi, you won't get off with just your head on the chopping block either.

At the recollection of Baek Yoon-ah's threat, Haeseo broke into a sprint. That threat was the very reason she'd chased after this Busan business trip she didn't need to attend, dragged along by the president's iron will.

'You're barely out of the cradle and you live like a monk? Go to a beach in summer and see how ugly it gets. It's crawling with sleazebags looking to rub up on you—and you want me to just leave Ruby there alone? Aigo. Enough talk. You're going with him.'

Sprinting full-tilt across the sand had left her gasping, and she grabbed Ruby's thick forearm with both hands, nearly yanking him around.

"Ruby!"

Whew, that was a workout. She'd flung so much of her weight forward that her upper body slapped flat against his arm. Her hands, gripping his forearm, slid down until they landed at his wrist. Terrified she'd be shaken off, she hurriedly re-gripped.

Why on earth are even his forearms this thick and hard?

"Hah—hoo."

"Haeseo? What are you—"

"What are you doing here? We need to head back to the hotel now! It's our first time sharing a room, you know. Our f-first night together, I'm so excited—"

"……"

"……"

"……"

In a suffocating silence shared by all three of them, Haeseo sensed that something was off and cautiously lifted her head.

"Oh my, what a lovely time of life. Adorable."

"Mom! Come on, hurry. I'm hungry."

"Right, coming, coming. We're having conger eel for dinner at that alley place—it's delicious. Fighting!"

Behind the woman—who wore her bikini with impressive flair atop a body without an ounce of fat—a middle-school-aged son the size of a house was calling her. She waved her clenched fist in an encouraging little pump, flashed a satisfied smile, and walked away.

And the phone in Ruby's hand was none other than Ruby's own.

'Oh. Wait. So then…'

The phone he'd simply dropped. A beachgoer had picked it up for him. That was all.

Dense as ever, Haeseo stood frozen, her mouth hanging open—still clinging to Ruby's arm in exactly the same position.

"Uh, um, th—Ruby—I mean, Team Leader."

Her heart hammered so violently it felt ready to burst out of her chest. The places where their bodies touched burned hot enough that she couldn't tell whether the fever was hers or his.

"Right, that's what I was trying to explain—"

"……Yeah."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Never mind. Just let go of me."

"Yes, sir."

Apparently she'd been gripping harder than she realized—the moment she released his arm and straightened up, her fingertips tingled.

"Ah…"

Haeseo had laced her faintly trembling hands together, then faltered and fell silent. The expression Ruby wore as he glanced down at her seemed perfectly ordinary—except his entire face was, unmistakably, beet red.

Without meaning to, Haeseo simply stood there and looked at him.

"The boxes are here?"

"Yes."

"I'll go thank them. You head to the hotel."

In a noisy beach packed with humanity like cereal swimming in milk, the sound of Ruby swallowing was somehow the loudest thing in the world.

"Go on ahead."

Without the courage to ask him to repeat himself, Haeseo had no choice but to meekly return to the hotel first. Ruby did not come inside for hours after that.

They weren't sharing a room, of course, but Ruby's comings and goings were reported to her—because the hotel was a BH Group affiliate. On top of that, the entire hospitality division was Baek Yoon-ah's domain.

Only in the evening, after Haeseo—who'd arrived in broad daylight and worn herself out waiting—had showered and wiped her face completely bare, did Ruby finally reach out directly. He told her to come down to the hotel restaurant.

She hurriedly changed into a dress and scrambled upstairs, where a staff member ushered her into a private room. A restaurant, out of nowhere. She'd planned to have gukbap tonight and had even drawn up a shortlist of eateries.

Grumbling that he was throwing another one of his inexplicable tantrums, she stepped into the room and—

"Wh—what is all this?"

A bouquet crammed so densely with red roses she couldn't have counted them sat on the table.

His cheeks flushed the very shade of those petals, Ruby propped his chin on one hand and swung his face away toward the floor-to-ceiling window, where the glittering night seascape spread out below.

A nameless, precise-cause-unknown dread wrapped itself around Haeseo's whole body in an instant. Thump-thump-thump. So the heart can beat this fast on pure survival instinct alone.