DAY 10 - FIRST STEP TO A HARMONIOUS RELATIONSHIP

As soon as the strong wind crept unto his skin with the sight of withered leaves dramatically falling from the trees, Jinyoung found himself hand in hand with Gom as they stood in front of the soon-to-be-open coffee shop, where Mark has lead them.

If the child did not adorably pleaded Mark to join him for 'whatever urgent matter' he has, Jinyoung would've probably lived his life to the fullest, just eating the remaining free slices of pizza for the whole afternoon. And since there's no way a very loving and supportive guardian like him could say 'no' to the child's request, his dreams and fantasies about pizzas just vanished in the blink of an eye, as soon as they ended up lazily dragging their feet inside the said establishment.

Tightly gripping Gom's palm to support him from walking, Jinyoung silently followed Mark from the back as the three of them headed towards the front door. A sight of a disorganized and dusty place soon greeted them. Unlike the completely polished exterior design of the cafe, Jinyoung noticed that its interior area wasn't painted nor even decorated yet. The smell of the freshly carved wooden cabinets, counter, divider, and its attic inspired ceiling has circulated around the area, causing the child to sneeze upon inhaling its strong scent. There were untouched vintage photographs too, mostly framed paintings, placed above the glass tables, which were lined up along with the other furniture.

"Oopsie, that costs 250,000 won each! No touching, just look," warned someone from the back which alarmingly caught Jinyoung's attention. He shifted his gaze to the left and noticed that Gom looked flustered from touching the colorful cushions, as if he was caught committing a crime. Being left confused, wondering if the child had actually broke something, he looked at the guy beside them, who surprisingly bursted out laughing in a distinctive yet contagious way.

"Just kidding!!! I'm just kidding... Haha! You can touch it, baby!" said the guy, giggling while playfully waving his hand at Gom. He seemed to look younger than Jinyoung by a year or two, the latter could tell from his facial features. "Oh! I just think he's really cute!" he reasoned out, still laughing.

Jinyoung pursed a smile to acknowledge his presence, thinking the young man looked harmless and quite funny in nature.

The contagious laughter echoed throughout the area, which caused Mark to finally broke his silence, "What did you call me for, Youngjae?"

"Ah, yes!" the guy being referred to as Youngjae immediately cleared his throat, making his way beside Mark. "The workers' contract has ended yesterday but as you can see they haven't finished painting the doors and walls yet..."

Apparently, Jinyoung was silently being observant from where he was standing. He already formed a lot of questions and thoughts inside his mind, wondering how much was the overall price of the coffee shop, whose ownership was it and how it was ridiculous to buy five cushions for 250,000 won each.

"...I told the workers to finish painting the walls at least, but they were asking for another payment which was already out of the budget. What should we do?"

Not wanting to overhear their conversation meant for business concerns, his eardrums couldn't help not to rang in annoyance upon hearing the words 'out of the budget', which seemed like a curse that never left his dictionary. He subtly eavesdropped at their conversation and tried to understand what was it all about.

"Daddy Nyoung... Daddy Nyoung..." the kid suddenly interrupted, slightly irritated with the strong urge of sulking. By wiggling his small arms upward, he tiptoed and struggled to catch for Jinyoung's attention. Whereas, the elder simply cooed the kid by giving him a bottle of milk as he bent over to carry him unto his arms.

"You're asking what should we do? Call the workers immediately and tell them to finish everything!" Mark strictly ordered, raising his cracked voice a bit.

"But sir, the payment that they demanded was worth a month of contract. It's 500,000 won each. I personally think it doesn't make sense since all they have to do was to paint the area and it won't even take them more than three days to do it," Youngjae took the courage to speak out his concerns, and Jinyoung immediately got his point. Besides, it's already obvious that it's going to be a great loss and totally useless if they'll proceed with another month of contract.

"Did you say 500,000 won each?!" Mark paused for a moment to deliberately think. He took a deep breath, heads down with puckered lips. Never in the entire current year, had he been this serious and conflicted, as if his life was at stake from solving a mathematical problem. He flicked his fingertips as soon as an invisible light bulb popped just above his head, "Fine. Just call five? No. Call three workers! We will pay them!"

And with that final decision, Jinyoung literally dropped his jaw in disbelief. He almost choked when he automatically calculated the expenses that Mark has agreed to pay.

!!!1,500,000 won!!!

!!!One million five hundred thousand won!!!

!!!MILLION!!!

As much as possible, Jinyoung wanted to step out from Mark's businesses and all that relates to their personal lives, thinking that his indecisive clinginess and habitual nagging could only annoy the latter. He knew better than anyone else that he possesses a strictly perfectionist trait in a way that he wanted almost everything to be done accordingly from his own way of thinking, which completely clashes from Mark's personality and judgment. However, he just couldn't bring himself not to step in from this matter when such large amount of money were at stake.

"Wait a minute," he stepped a foot forward. "How much does a gallon of paint costs and how many do you need?"

ㅡ

"Seriously, Jinyoung. The reason why I hired workers is because I cannot do this!!!" Mark grumbled as he blinked disapprovingly from the idea that Jinyoung just suggested.

Brushes, rollers, and trays were scattered on the floor together with the four gallons of wet paint, which Youngjae bought from the hardware. Painting the whole interior area by themselves was the least idea that he had expected to agree with. If only they were able to reach the workers' contact numbers, he won't seriously let himself deal with this kind of dilemma.

Seeing everyone, including the kid, wearing aprons and masks while equipped with their very own brushes or rollers, Mark felt his head twitching in pain from the stress caused by it.

Painting the coffee shop isn't a common group project to be passed at school, and it's literally not the right project to be trusted to a five year old kid, who was scarily carrying a small brush while freely painting at the wall like he was the great Picasso.

"Seriously... Do you know what subject I hated the most?" he brought his attention back at Jinyoung, who was painting with the use of rollers beside him.

"You seemed to be that student who dislikes every subject," the latter nonchalantly countered without shifting a head, which caused Youngjae to fill the area with his bubbly laughter again.

"I'm sorry, I thought it was funny," the young man zip locked his mouth when Mark threw a glare at him.

"But on the top of that, it's art!" he continued to whine, throwing off his arms in the air. "I cannot even color the drawings properly, what made you think I can paint the whole area?"

Jinyoung deeply exhaled, dipping the rollers back at the paint tray as he reached for large brushes to hand it to Mark. "Try it before you speak. You don't need to be creative. You just need your eyes and sense of judgement to know if you're painting well. Otherwise, if you still can't do it. It's either you lack something among the two, or you basically don't have it," with pursed his lips, he bent down to get the rollers back, leaving Mark totally speechless in state.

Did he just intended to mock me?

"This is a good idea, sir! I think we spent less a million won today!" Youngjae happily announced, grinning widely.

"L-Less a million?!" Mark struggled to speak in bewilderment, unable to realize until now that he almost spent more than a million for the contract.

"You haven't started your business yet I can see you going bankruptcy already... Just because you can afford everything, doesn't mean you can use it recklessly," he heard Jinyoung murmuring beside him.

"Gom-Gom can do it!" the kid heartily giggled. He marched his small feet towards Jinyoung and gently pulled the elder's shirt. "Daddy, look! Look!"

"Uwaaah! My baby did great!!!" Jinyoung exclaimed in aw