Chapter 74.2

Chapter 74.2

André frowned slightly, as if to say he could barely believe it.

“I told you, you don’t have to return that.”

“How can you say that? That’s a lot of money.”

Miran lightly tapped his chest, scolding him. André let out a short sigh.

“…We’ll talk about it later. Can you get up?”

She nodded and got off his lap. A bit unsteady, she walked to the sofa, took out a mirror from her bag, and gasped as she looked at her face.

“I could have been in big trouble if I had just walked out like this.”

While Miran tidied her hair and touched up her lipstick, André went into the bathroom to wash his face with cold water. He needed some time to cool down his overly excited lower half.

Once he calmed down a bit, he straightened his crooked tie and buttoned his jacket as he stepped out of the bathroom. He saw Miran standing in front of a portrait of his childhood.

“This… is you, right, André?”

The portrait, painted when he was five years old, had hung in one place for so long that it felt like part of the wall. He had almost forgotten about its existence.

“Yeah.”

“Wow, André had a childhood too… It’s amazing! I bet when you were a baby, you told the person feeding you milk, ‘Get your hands off me, I’ll hold it myself.’”

Miran mimicked André’s tone.

André chuckled at her silly remark and nodded at her.

“Come here.”

Miran scampered over with a grin.

“But I recognized you as André right away.”

“How?”

In fact, Miran was the only one who had instantly recognized the portrait as him.

“Hmm. Even as a baby, your expression is unusually serious.”

Miran tilted her chin slightly and half-lidded her eyes with an arrogant look, mimicking his expression. Then she covered her mouth and giggled at how funny it was. When André glared at her with the same expression, she laughed even harder and imitated him again.

Eventually, André couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. Miran was the only person who could tease him like that and get away with it. It wasn’t easy to resist the urge to devour that innocent and cheerful being from head to toe.

Shaking his head with a smile, he opened the living room door, only to find Higgins frozen in place, still in the act of knocking right in front of the door. As soon as Higgins regained his composure and stepped back, André placed a hand on Miran’s back and walked into the living room.

As the elevator arrived at the gallery and Miran stepped inside, Higgins respectfully bowed his head towards her.

[Good night, ma’am.]

[Good night!]

Miran also nodded in greeting and then smiled brightly at André.

“The people who work here seem really kind.”

[Good night, Mr. Lafayette.]

As Higgins offered his evening greeting to André, he gave a faint smile and nodded in response.

[Good night, Higgins. Thank you for dinner tonight.]

Just as Higgins’s jaw dropped in surprise, the elevator doors closed.

—

“This is it, 3A.”

Miran took the key out of her bag and inserted it into the blunt handle. The large shadow of the man standing behind her completely covered Miran’s shadow cast on the dormitory door. The stiff lock was difficult to open, and she had to fumble with the key several times.

Her hands fidgeted even more as Andre stood there, serious as the Grim Reaper. He had been frowning since they got out of the car, clearly displeased about something.

Finally, with a click, the handle turned. Letting out a sigh of relief, she opened the dormitory door and stepped halfway inside, only to freeze in surprise. Taeyoung was sitting on the living room sofa in just his underwear, drinking beer and watching TV, and he jumped in shock.

“What the heck, Kang Miran? I thought you were moving out of the dorm?”

His face turned bright red as he hurriedly grabbed a cushion next to him. Miran awkwardly turned her gaze away.

“Me? No, Hyunjung is the one who left. I’m staying here.”

“Really? Ha, sh*t. It seems Kim Hongseok is lying again.”

At that moment, the bathroom door swung open.

“What did I do?”

Hongseok, wearing only a small towel around his lower half, saw Miran standing by the front door and gasped, quickly retreating back into the bathroom and slamming the door shut. A few seconds later, he cracked the door open slightly and peeked out with an embarrassed expression.

“Didn’t you leave the dorm because of the cockroaches?”

“No, that was Hyunjung.”

“Oh, I see. I stopped by earlier and the guide said someone left the dorm because of the cockroach. I thought you had left too since I didn’t see any of you all day.”

André, who had been watching the scene half-hidden by the door, roughly pushed it open.