Best Friend X Swap

Cutting ties, he said.
The appearance of a word he hadn’t expected at all left him no time to rearrange his stunned expression. The barely squeezed-out “Huh?” dropped flat to the floor, and Seo-eul, who had been slowly blinking in a daze, only managed to open his mouth haltingly after a few more seconds passed.
“W–wait, what do you mean… cutting ties?”
Cutting ties wasn’t the name of some grand bridge, so was it really the word he knew? When he asked again, Seo-eul hurried to reboot the inside of his head that had briefly shut down. So apparently we were cutting ties, and supposedly I started it… He followed the train of thought until his brows suddenly knit together.
He did not have to think far. The reason Seo Sa-heon had suddenly insisted they appear on this program. That absurd “national best-friend declaration plan.” Considering why that even came up, there was ultimately only one answer.
He never imagined Sa-heon would talk about that, let alone call it “cutting ties,” and Seo-eul pressed down the sigh rising to the top of his throat. Whatever the case, explanation came first.
Even as he tightly clasped his hands to steel himself, the fact was that his panic had already been completely exposed. His ears, which had been pale moments ago, were now tinged a noticeable red as he awkwardly began to speak.
“Ah… no, that’s not it. I only meant we should start living separately soon, but I guess something got twisted around. Moving out is not cutting ties, Sa-heon… seriously, can you say things properly for once?”
[Q. So why were you planning to slowly cu— no, to live separately from Sa-heon?]
“…You’re teasing me, right? It is really not cutting ties, seriously…. There is no dramatic reason behind it. I mean, I turn thirty next year, so I cannot live with a friend in the same house forever. My schedule wrapped up at just the right time… and everything lined up, so I brought it up first. But I did not know he explained it like that…”
Not even a few minutes ago, Seo-eul had pleaded with them to understand that Seo Sa-heon was a decent person. Watching the sandcastle he had worked so hard to build collapse from the side made the back of his head sting. What on earth did he say in the pre-recorded interview? The sudden question chilled the ache at the back of his skull.
It was because he remembered Sa-heon’s temperament—once he started something, he finished it decisively. Whether it was good or bad, once he did it, he never did just one thing.
Seo-eul’s complexion rapidly turned pale. No way, right? he thought, yet he kept recalling the image of writer Kang Su-gyeong flipping through the questionnaire earlier. Even the constantly changing expressions on her face.
“Did… did Sa-heon perhaps say anything else?”
He had no choice but to ask.
Praying that the answer would be that it ended there.
Seeing the faintly anxious look on Seo-eul’s face, Su-gyeong—who had been glancing down at Sa-heon’s pre-interview Q&A sheet—had a troubled expression. What the production staff had agreed on beforehand was that, for the sake of the teaser, they would only give a hint about this “cutting ties” part. By principle, they were not supposed to reveal individual interview content to each other, but…
Her gaze stopped on a certain part of the page. “I really should not tell you this,” she prefaced, and Seo-eul’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Strictly speaking, she should decline right here—but she was the main writer, the one who knew better than anyone how to capture a good broadcast moment.
[Q. If this is not abandonment, then what is it…….]
At that, Seo-eul squeezed his eyes shut.

Seo Sa-heon, you insane bastard.
 
He had no idea how he even finished the interview. Seo-eul stumbled out of the annex with a dazed face, clutching his about-to-explode head as he walked. Because the interview had taken longer than expected, the outside was already dark. The lights placed throughout the neatly decorated scenery sparkled like a picture, but he had no room to appreciate them.
Abandonment, he said.
Just thinking about that ridiculous word choice gave him a headache.
It was not like he was some pet. The urge to pinch Seo Sa-heon’s cheek as hard as he could—after the man had single-handedly turned him into some kind of cruel abandonment criminal—was overwhelming. What chilled him most was the realization that, had the staff not given him a heads-up, he would not have known a thing until the actual broadcast.
He was the type who could watch most horror films without blinking. Even when ghosts snapped limbs and lunged, his heartbeat stayed steady—yet now it pounded loudly, making its existence violently known. The fact that Seo Sa-heon could be scarier than a ghost… the absurdity of it made him let out a shaky laugh.
When he opened the front [N O V E L I G H T] door and stepped inside, the living room was just as empty as before.
Wondering if they still had not finished unpacking, he headed toward the kitchen—only to see two frantic backs, which made him pause in confusion. What? Did they not say they had zero cooking talent?
“…What are you doing?”
“Wah!”
“Wha—!”
He had asked as gently as he could, but a much bigger reaction came back. Seo-eul, startled that they were so startled, widened his eyes and stiffened his shoulders. Ye Ju-yeol and Yoon Hyuk, who whirled around in a panic, hastily hid something behind their backs. It was suspicious no matter who looked at it.
“Hahh… y-you’re, you’re back?”
“Yeah. But why are you reacting like that?”
“Haha… ha. You just suddenly talked to us, so… uh! How was the interview? You were gone a long time. Is it because it was your first interview?”
Seo-eul kept his mouth shut about that. The first half had gone okay, but the latter half had been a definitive disaster. Where was Seo Sa-heon? He turned to look for the source of the catastrophe, but the man was nowhere in sight, so he returned his gaze to the two of them. He had just seen Seo Sa-heon’s neatly placed shoes by the entrance.
“…Where did Sa-heon go?”
“Oh. He said he would go set down his suitcase, so he went up to the second floor for a bit. We left everything on the first floor earlier because everything was so chaotic.”
True, between the moving guidebook and the shell game, a lot had happened before he had even gotten a chance to move the suitcase. Then Sa-heon had disappeared outside, leaving no time to unpack.
Realizing that Sa-heon had gone ahead to sort things out before he could, Seo-eul began heading toward the stairs—then abruptly changed direction.
He could have pretended not to see, but anyone could tell these two had caused trouble. He could not just leave it alone.
“Uwah— w-wait…!”
The two men, who thought they might get away with it, instantly turned ashen. Without a word, Seo-eul walked straight toward the sink, and they panicked. “Sunbae-nim!”, “Hyung!” They tried desperately to block him, but it was pointless. Perhaps because he still felt guilty for having grabbed Seo-eul’s hand and barging forward recklessly during their first meeting, Ye Ju-yeol flinched even before they touched, and Yoon Hyuk could not hold him back either.
For all their size, they practically crumbled out of the way on their own. Seo-eul let out a small laugh and lowered his gaze. Only after seeing the scene before him did he understand their behavior.
“Ah…”
Under the bright kitchen light, the countertop was covered with ham and sausages that had been violently butchered and now lay strewn like corpses.
Their original shapes must have been similar, but the pork products had now each acquired their own… personality. Staring at the remains, Seo-eul momentarily lost his words.
They had apparently attempted diagonal slicing, but the sausages had not been sliced diagonally—they had simply been chopped in half and slain. The canned ham was jagged and crooked, and the vegetables were no better. Nothing looked remotely normal.
This disaster had unfolded because they tried to prepare ingredients ahead of time.
Perhaps it was overconfidence—thinking, We are not really cooking, so at least cutting ham is doable, right? Because Seo-eul’s interview had gone on longer than expected, they had jumped in thoughtlessly. But the two of them were now at a loss, holding their hands up as though surrendering.
“Uh, w-we did not mess around, really. We only tried to slice it properly…”
“Y-yes. We seriously only cut it, but the shapes kept getting weird… We were trying to finish it before you came. It failed… a bit… but we are not the kind of guys who would waste food to mess around! We are too busy eating it! Why would we…!”
“Yeah, you worked hard. Good job.”
“…Sorry, what?”
Ye Ju-yeol, who had been firing off a rapid stream of explanations, blinked blankly. Good job? How could he offer encouragement after seeing those ham corpses?
Thinking he misheard, he looked at Yoon Hyuk, but that face was no different. Then Ye Ju-yeol replayed Seo-eul’s tone—trying to determine whether it had been “You did well,” or “Wow, you suuure did a job.” Tears welled up. There is no way our sunbae would be that sarcastic… but what if he is really mad?
As Ye Ju-yeol suffered between those two possibilities, unaware of his inner turmoil, Seo-eul calmly inspected the mountain of ingredients.
If anything, his determination to make a big meal had amplified everything into giant piles.
Assuming it would have taken quite a while to prepare alone, he opened the cupboard. Where was the largest pot? Thinking over it, he spoke in a gentle voice.
“It is budae-jjigae, so who cares. As long as you did not wash anything with dish soap, it is fine.”
“…….”
“The tiny chopped bits can just be used as ground meat, so it is okay. The vegetables… ah, this was rinsed with water, right?”
“…….”
“…….”
“…It was not?”