Peninsula: From a supporting actor to the best actor in Chungmuro

Chapter 52 The Third Wish Is a Secret
The kitchen chandelier was shrouded in mist, looking like a moon.

Lee Sung-kyung stood in front of the stove with her back to the living room, and her black sports vest was soaked with sweat, revealing the outline of her butterfly bones.

The moment Jiang Jae-hoon pushed open the entrance door.

The gurgling sound of the kelp stew pot was coming from the kitchen.

"I thought you were going to be busy until the early hours today."

He changed his shoes and caught a glimpse of the ponytail swaying slightly through the kitchen glass door:
“Isn’t there an after party on the last day of Seoul Fashion Week?”

"The brand has changed its plan."

She lies without blinking.

"Oh... kelp soup?"

His nostrils twitched as he moved into the kitchen like a drug-sniffing dog.

“Leftovers from a supermarket tasting.”

"Can you tell if the food is abalone slices?"

Jiang Zaixun pointed at the golden wrinkles floating on the surface of the soup:
"Could the supermarket that Bible went to be called Lotte Department Store VVVIP Exclusive?"

Li Jingcheng turned around and gave him a look:
"The salesperson took pity on me and gave me two more. Do you have any objections?"

Jiang Zaixun suddenly grinned:

"I have an opinion—"

Li Jingcheng's hand holding the spoon stopped in mid-air:
"If you want to die, just say so."

"I think I should give you two more slices if I read the Bible."

"...Jiang Jae-hoon, has the swelling on the back of your head metastasized into your thick skin?"

She turned around and took out the spare abalone from the refrigerator and poured it all into the pot:

"Go out and don't disturb me."

"Oh……"

Li Jingcheng stared at the swaying reflection of the soup noodles. The moon outside the window happened to move to the top of the range hood, reflecting the smile on her lips that was not hidden clearly.

Jiang Zaixun walked out of the kitchen and his eyes were suddenly glued to the dark green paper bag on the sofa.

"The Bible—"

He stood at the kitchen door holding the paper bag and shook it: "Is this my birthday present?"

"Out-of-season sale item."

"what?"

Jiang Zaixun looked at the label on the bag and scratched his head:

"Jardin des Plumes from the 2014SS collection. This was clearly a new product from the fashion week a few days ago."

"The modeling world has a runway show today and a season tomorrow. Is there a problem?"

"……no problem."

Jiang Zaixun returned to the house, carrying a paper bag. The rustling sound of changing clothes mixed with the soft click of the metal buckle of his belt. Li Shengjing unconsciously reduced the force of stirring the kelp soup, and the tip of her ears caught the movement next door.

"Bible, this suit is made to my measurements, right?" he shouted through the door. "Even the length of the pants looks custom-made!"

"It was chosen based on the average size of a convenience store cashier."

Her hand trembled as she sprinkled salt into the soup, and she lied fluently.

There was a sound of a door being pushed open.

Li Shengjing's peripheral vision shifted fifteen degrees as if it was attracted by a magnet.

The off-white linen shirt wrapped around Jiang Zaixun's inverted triangle shoulders, and the molten gold glow of the sunset flowed along the texture of his muscles.

The nine-point trousers were cut with neat folds, revealing a section of tanned ankles, looking wild and lazy, like a Greek shipping magnate who had just walked down from the deck of a yacht in the Aegean Sea.

——A hundred times more pleasing to the eye than those sickly pale male models who were her runway partners.

"How about it?"

Kang Jae-hoon turned around.

"generally."

She lowered her eyes and picked up the abalone slices:

"Better than your usual trash bag style."

He posed in front of the entrance mirror, just like when Hwang Jung-min won the award:

"I want to wear it to the press conference for 'The Heirs'."

"what ever."

Li Jingcheng held a bowl of kelp soup in his hand, but his peripheral vision traced his silhouette gilded by the light.

This dress should be paired with a Cuban chain, or...

Jiang Zaixun adjusted his cufflinks in front of the entrance mirror, completely oblivious to the furtive glances from behind him. The light and moonlight wove a web of stars around his shoulders, even the lingering bump on the back of his head became a lovely medal.

"If I wear this at the press conference..."

He suddenly turned his head and met Li Jingjing's gaze, which she hadn't yet recovered from:

“Would it be too casual?”

"It's better than your role as a noblewoman in Macbeth."

“The Bible is whatever you like.”

He grinned and rolled up his sleeves to his elbows:

"Wear it like this the day after tomorrow!" "Whatever you want."

Jiang Zaixun went back to the house to change back into his elephant beach pants and put his linen shirt and cropped trousers into the washing machine:

"Bible, this fabric has to be hand washed in cold water, right?"

"The washing machine has a care mode."

Li Jingcheng's voice came with the sound of dishes colliding:
"Don't act like you're offering to Buddha."

"Oh."

Jiang Zaixun suddenly turned around and grabbed the oven gloves: "Let me take it!"

"Be careful not to break the bowl—"

Before he finished speaking, Jiang Zaixun had already moved forward with the crab in the casserole:

"Make way! Make way! The murderous weapon is coming!"

Li Jingcheng rolled his eyes and turned sideways, watching him place the soup pot in the center of the coffee table like a deminer.

The strawberry cream cake was frosted when it was taken out of the refrigerator, with a number candle [24] stuck crookedly on it.

"Make a wish."

She flung the lighter away.

Jiang Zaixun sat cross-legged in a lotus position, staring at the flickering candlelight and suddenly grinned:
"Bible, I sang you a birthday song last month!"

"so?"

"Reciprocity!"

Li Jingjing was finally defeated by someone's continuous firing of dog eye rays——

"Happy~birthday~ to you~"

A mechanical-sounding blessing sang out from between her lips, each syllable smooth and even as if it had been ironed.

“Be emotional!”

“…Happy birthday, Jaehoon.”

"Where's the back?"

"Snapped!"

The flame from the lighter scorched a wisp of air, and Lee Sung-kyung burned the remaining three lines of the blessing song to ashes with his eyes.

Jiang Jae-hoon immediately closed his eyes, and a thin layer of sweat seeped out of his clasped palms.

The candlelight flickered on his trembling eyelashes, and Li Jingcheng's mobile phone camera quietly shifted -

"My first wish is that the ratings for 'The Heirs' will break 30%!"

"greedy."

"My second wish is that Mr. Hwang Jung-min won't ask me to play a role in a crossover role again..."

"boring."

"The third one—"

"Don't tell me the third one!"

She quickly locked the screen: "It won't work."

"Eh? Didn't you say the first two were just polite words, and the third one is the truth..."

“Eat your cake and eat it too.”

“Eat the Bible first!”

Jiang Zaixun cut off the piece of cake with the most strawberries and handed it over:

"……childish."

As she bit off the tip of the strawberry, she suddenly heard Kang Jae-hoon coughing from the other side.

"Salty?"

Lee Sung Kyung suddenly remembered that when she was adding salt, she was disturbed by Kang Jae Hoon who had changed his clothes, and her hands were shaking, so she sprinkled some more.

“Salty and fragrant is the soul of kelp soup.”

"……Fool."

Li Shengjing silently stood up and took the whole pot of soup back to the kitchen to remake it.

Jiang Zaixun followed into the kitchen with a cake fork in his mouth, leaning against the door frame to watch Li Jingjing reseasoning:

"Oh my God, shouldn't the salt shaker have a [No Hand Shake] label on it?"

"It would be more appropriate to stick it on your forehead."

She scooped up a spoonful of clear soup and blew it to cool it down: "Try it."

Jiang Zaixun leaned over and sipped from her hand, giving a thumbs-up as his Adam's apple rolled:
“Perfect! Michelin three-star level!”

"Bring it out."

……

As the moonlight streamed over the windowsill, Li Jingjing leaned against the head of the bed and looked through the photo album.

In the latest photo, a watermark of [2013.09.12] dances next to Kang Jae-hoon's outline softened by candlelight.

And Jiang Zaixun's third unspoken wish drifted into the night sky of Seoul along with the candle smoke -

I hope that Shen Qing can change her habit of saying one thing and doing another, and perhaps admit that she had the shirt custom-made by a designer in advance.

(End of this chapter)