Best Friend X Swap

Could they really have washed the vegetables with dish soap?
When not a single answer came—as if they had rehearsed their silence—his anxiety spiked. Seo-eul, who had not even checked what grade the dish soap by the sink was, forced his expression back into place. Even if they had scrubbed the green onions and onions squeaky clean, he could simply take everything out again.
He glanced back, telling himself not to overreact, but the two faces he met head-on were filled with a very peculiar kind of injustice.
“Hyung… we are not that bad….”
“Huh?”
“A–as if anyone would wash ham with dish soap…!”
They were not idiots! Seeing how genuinely wronged Ye Ju-yeol looked—practically hopping in place—it finally clicked for Seo-eul, who parted his lips a beat too late with an “Ah.” At least it was not that bad. Having already encountered someone far worse, he was genuinely relieved.
After hearing the fried-egg story at the supermarket, his expectations for the two’s cooking ability had already dropped below a fingernail’s height. Which meant that the correct interpretation of “Good job” earlier truly had been the first meaning: “You really did well.”
Naturally, he had set their entire household-skill baseline at zero. And truthfully, Seo-eul was never someone who resonated with phrases like, “Food that looks good tastes good.” As long as you ate it and did not get sick, was that not enough? Any and all plating or decoration he had ever done was one hundred percent because of Sa-heon; that was hardly an exaggeration.
Realizing belatedly that he had gone too far, he offered an apology.
“Sorry. You were talking earlier about charcoal or whatever, so I thought you two had no connection to cooking whatsoever.”
“We do have a… wall there! But still….”
Unable to outright deny the towering wall that existed between them and cooking, Ye Ju-yeol’s voice trailed off meekly. At the same moment, Yoon ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) Hyuk—remembering that he was the one who had said that charcoal comment—lifted a hand in a helpless gesture. And that was when Seo Sa-heon came down from the second floor and stepped into the kitchen.
“When did you get here.”
Saying it had taken longer than he expected, Sa-heon walked over with long strides—only to sense that the atmosphere was strange. Completely unaware of the disaster at the sink, he looked at Seo-eul’s face, then at the squirming Ye Ju-yeol, then at the fragments of ham rolling around on the cutting board, and asked in confusion:
“…What is this, modern art?”
“…….”
“Did you two game again?”
He asked because it felt like someone like PD Jeon Jae-yeon must have stormed in earlier—but the silence that followed was heavy. Never would he have imagined that this was supposed to be ingredient prep. He stared down at the sausage pieces carved into diamond shapes. Is this edible? he wondered, but the answer was simple: why would he eat something he did not know whose hands had mauled?
Unexpectedly, he was the clean-freak one. Right now, there was only one thing to do. Should I throw all this out? He grabbed a food-waste bag to toss everything, but Seo-eul startled, jumped, and quickly slapped a hand over his mouth.

What now.
Lowering himself to match his height despite not understanding a thing, Seo Sa-heon only lifted his brows.
When Seo-eul asked why he would throw away perfectly fine ham, Sa-heon shot back a look meaning, How does that look fine to you? And Seo-eul, clearing his throat, dodged the point.
It clearly was not some gaming aftermath, and Sa-heon’s eyes narrowed instinctively. Finally, unable to handle the tension, Yoon Hyuk confessed with an air of guilty honesty. Only then could Sa-heon grasp the situation. The two looked inwardly wounded that their ham had been treated like garbage, but Sa-heon could not help but burst out in a chuckle.
“He is like this because something happened to him.”
Not because those two idiots caused trouble the second he stepped away—but because he knew exactly where Seo-eul’s dish-soap paranoia came from.
He could tell Seo-eul would never say it himself, so he set the stage. Immediately, Seo-eul jabbed him hard in the ribs. Sa-heon, amused at the “do not you dare” look he received, shrugged and continued anyway.
“Some woman once washed rice with dish soap, and the whole group almost had to get stomach pumps.”
“Gasp.”
“What???”
The two, already startled by the rare sight of a smiling Seo Sa-heon, could only gape. They had followed him around all afternoon without seeing a single change in expression—so what on earth had triggered him now? And on top of that came an unbelievable anecdote, making their eyes go even wider.
With three visible question marks practically floating above his head, Ye Ju-yeol muttered quickly, “Wow, I only saw that online… I did not think people like that really exist. But we are not that bad! We! We washed the vegetables in water! Only water! And! We only sliced the ham! Ah—no, that is not the point. Who even did that? Was it a stalker…? Someone doing it on purpose! Right??”
Once Ye Ju-yeol got going, the stream of chatter spilled endlessly like a bottomless pouch. Sa-heon barely managed to swallow back a wince at the impending earache as he answered dryly:
“Oh. It was my sister.”
“…….”
“…….”
“She said she felt bad always eating meals we cooked for her, so she wanted to make dinner for us. And paid us back with betrayal.”
A cold, heavy silence settled over the kitchen again.
Having unintentionally labeled someone else’s family member a stalker, Ye Ju-yeol silently began filling the sink with water. He looked seconds away from dunking his face into it. Seo-eul hurried to turn off the faucet and scolded Sa-heon.
“Hey, why would you say that…!”
“It is funny.”
“What is funny. She did not know any better.”
“Yeah. That is why it is funny.”
Even as he spoke, the corners of his mouth never came down. Seo-eul was the only one who remembered that the situation had not actually been that serious. The fact that he was still teasing her years later was what made it absurd. The only “crime” of Seo Sa-heon’s sister, Seo Su-ran, was that she had a sense of courtesy, did not know the first thing about cooking, and had a bit of a cleanliness streak.
It had happened like this.
Su-ran—who would drop by occasionally to check whether the two were getting along—one day suddenly offered to help with the cooking. Feeling guilty for always being served dinner, she said she could at least make rice and stepped up confidently. That was the mistake.
Seo Su-ran (then twenty-nine, global business strategy team leader) was a woman far more obsessed with her company than any kitchen. So the moment she turned on the water and saw the cloudy rinse from the rice, she interpreted it as some kind of harmful residue. Not knowing that the “rice water” was used to make broth, she squeezed the dish soap bottle firmly, determined to wash everything clean.
The result was horrific.
No matter how much she rinsed, bubbles kept multiplying endlessly. She realized something was wrong just as Seo Sa-heon—who had also sensed something strange—burst in and caught the entire scene.
Seeing grains of rice coated in citrus-scented dish soap, he wore an expression of rare disbelief and said, “Seo Su-ran, if you do not want to split the inheritance, just say so. Is this your way? Ugh. Then what do we do with this? I do not know. Hey! We are eating out. You can eat that alone if you want. I cannot believe this. Dish soap terrorism… in my own home….”
Su-ran, outraged at being accused of “terrorism,” grabbed her brother by the collar, and that commotion made Seo-eul rush in. They fought for quite some time, and in the end, they truly had to eat out that night. Even years later, it was vivid like yesterday—must have burned itself into their memories. But the problem now was Seo Su-ran's dignity. If this aired, she would absolutely murder him for publicly humiliating her.
Seo-eul agonized.
Could this be edited out…?
He was ready to request a personal meeting with PD Jeon Jae-yeon if necessary.
At that moment, Ye Ju-yeol’s phone rang, and when he checked the screen, he paused his plan to drown himself in the sink and said gloomily:
“I will go to my interview….”
There was no need to feel that bad. Feeling a little sorry, Seo-eul called, “Ju-yeol-ah—” but nothing was going right for Ye Ju-yeol since morning, and he fled the kitchen like a tragic heroine.
Clicking his tongue at the retreating figure, Yoon Hyuk said he would check on him and disappeared. Immediately after, Seo-eul spun around, reached out, and stretched both of Sa-heon’s cheeks hard. The anger he had set aside finally exploded.
“Are you really going to keep doing this? You could have just let it go!”
“That hurts.”
“And what was that interview. When did I ever tell you I wanted to cut ties with you, Seo Sa-heon? Do you know how shocked I was? Abandonment? What abandonment. Are you a puppy? Do you want to get abandoned? Why do you keep saying weird things. What else did you say. Hm?”
Yes—what had frightened Seo-eul even more was the sense that this kind of fabrication might not be the only one. Writer Su-gyeong’s face—smiling vaguely while saying she couldnt tell him more—had already maxed out his anxiety meter, and his grip on Sa-heon’s cheeks only tightened. Even so, the man’s face did not crumble; it only gleamed annoyingly. Could he please look a little uglier.
Whether he read Seo-eul’s thoughts or not, Sa-heon curved his eyes and moved his lips silently a few times.
Thinking he was finally going to confess, Seo-eul slowly let go. With flushed cheeks, Seo Sa-heon asked:
“If I say I am a puppy, will you not abandon me and keep living with me?”
It was exactly the kind of sentence deserving another pinch on the cheek, but well.