Want to Earn Some Promotion Points? (2)
"A promotion? Just like that?"
"Mm. Just curious."
It must have come out of nowhere, because Chae Dayeon — whose eyes almost never betrayed a change in expression — widened them by a fraction.
"...Not that I really care."
She wasn't uninterested, and she wasn't hungry for it either. Just average. Ordinary.
Jacking her Promotion Desire all the way up right here would erase that blank, deadpan charm of hers, though, so I sat with her page open for a moment and thought about how to rewrite her Remarks.
In the end, I went with this.
Set up like this, the underlying grain was similar to Han Minah's — but given how different the two of them were, the picture that came out would be nothing alike.
And so.
"Still, you've got to get promoted eventually, don't you?"
"I mean, yeah. But it feels a little early to start worrying about it. You and Assistant Manager Lim both moved up pretty fast, you know. I figure if I just keep showing up, it'll happen someday."
"So it's not that you don't care at all."
"Who goes to work and doesn't care about getting promoted?"
That was the kind of answer those questions pulled out of her. Which meant…
"...Want to pick up some promotion points today?"
"Today?"
"Mm. After we eat."
I wondered what she'd say to that. If she had no real ambition and didn't like me, she'd brush it off — no thanks, don't need it. But Chae Dayeon wasn't ambitious, she was at least a little fond of me, and she was more interested in sleeping with me than in climbing the ladder. So of course it came out like this.
"...I wasn't really planning on earning that many."
"Even one point is better than nothing. Keep collecting them and you'll get there eventually."
"Can we keep it simple? Just a little?"
"Of course."
"Then… yeah. Let's keep it simple."
"Alright. We'll eat first and find a place after."
"Mm."
Dayeon answered with a sound closer to ung than a proper yeah, then set about mincing the hamburg steak that had just arrived into tiny, tidy pieces. Nom. Mmph. Nom-nom, mmph-nom. She was small enough that her mouth was on the small side too, and even those finely cut bites made her cheeks puff out a little. It was almost painfully cute.
That mouth…
"...Aren't you going to eat?"
"Ah. Right."
"Hurry up and try it. It's good."
Still a kitten, I guess. Not a streetwise adult cat who only thought of herself — Dayeon didn't just focus on her own plate. She prodded me to eat too. The hamburg steak was as good as she'd promised, and between the two of us the meal disappeared faster than I expected.
We paid and stepped outside.
"Dayeon, where do you live again?"
"Gwangmyeong way."
"You said you live alone, right?"
"Mm."
"Then want to go to your place?"
"Nn… okay."
With her apartment locked in as the destination, we headed back to the office to pick up the car. Clocking out on the dot didn't mean the building had emptied — plenty of people were still moving through the halls. We slipped between them, rode down to the underground parking garage, and climbed in together.
I punched her address into the navigation and pulled out. We hadn't been driving long before—
"...Woojin."
"Hm?"
"I'm cold."
That was a very, very long way of asking me to hold her hand.
Dayeon and I had gotten close during our new-hire orientation — our orientation. We'd kept a good thing going ever since, but I'd never thought of it as anything more than that. She probably hadn't either. It wasn't that there was no fondness between us. You can't maintain a decent relationship with someone if you don't like them as a person. We'd just never had a reason to look at each other as a man and a woman. That was all.
So.
"Cold?"
"Mm. Cold."
"I've got the heat on. Want me to turn on the seat warmer too?"
"...Mm."
If you stretched her I'm cold far enough, you could read it as an invitation to touch her. Then again, I'd already asked if she wanted me to hold her hand on the way to dinner — and thinking back on how she'd answered, maybe it wasn't a stretch at all.
"It's on. It'll warm up in a bit."
"……."
Whether it actually would or not, Dayeon turned that blank stare on me even after I'd switched on the heated seat. It was the look of a baby kitten who'd been given three kibbles and wanted to know if that was really all.
With that look, and in a voice that had gone faintly wistful…
"...I think holding hands would be warmer…"
"……."
Hey. If you say it like that, how the hell am I supposed to hold back?
"Hand."
"Mmmm…"
I held my right hand out. Dayeon gathered it up in both of hers with a low, rumbling little purr — and then, tap, she pressed my hand flat against her stomach like a stick-on heat pack.
The urge to mess with her flared up for no good reason. I wriggled my fingers against the soft belly under my palm, kneading and tickling.
"Yaaaaaa… that tiiickles…"
Her voice came out like a baby kitten's long, complaining mewl. I flicked a glance sideways and found her wearing the exact face of a genuinely offended cat.
We caught a red light. I lifted my hand off her stomach and brought it up a little higher. Dayeon squirmed.
Stroke, stroke, stroke.
"What're you doiiing…"
I rubbed her cheek with my thumb and she whined again, her face squashed out of shape where I was pressing. She had such a cute face to begin with that even crumpled up it was nothing but adorable — one eye squeezed shut, one corner of her mouth shoved upward, her head tipped to the side, her already-slushy pronunciation going slushier still.
Having confirmed, once again, that Chae Dayeon was dangerously cute, I waited for the light to change and settled my hand on her thigh instead.
"It'll be warmer here."
"Mm. Your hand's warm."
"Yeah?"
"Mm. I get cold really easily, so maybe that's why. Your hand feels really warm."
"They say skinny people feel the cold more. That's probably it."
"Yeah, I think so."
"You should put on some weight. You're too thin."
"I just don't gain…"
She tossed off a line that would have made other women cough blood, then used my hand — still resting on her thigh — to rub her own thigh back and forth, back and forth. The suit skirt she had on was fairly thick, but underneath it I could still feel the faint rasp that pantyhose always had.
Pantyhose, huh…
"...Dayeon."
"Mm?"
"Those stockings. Are they expensive?"
"Not really?"
"How much?"
"How much were these…"
She thought about it for a second.
"...Like fifteen bucks for a pack of ten, I think."
"That's all?"
"What did you think they cost?"
"The ones at the convenience store look like they run four or five bucks."
"That's because those are sold individually. I just buy the ten-packs and wear those."
"Ah…"
A new piece of knowledge, filed away. And then—
"...Why were you looking at pantyhose at a convenience store, though?"
"Hm?"
"Do you wear pantyhose too?"
"……."
Not a prejudiced bone in this kid's body.
"I was just wandering around seeing if there was anything I needed, and they were there."
"Mmh… but why the stockings?"
"For later. When we do it. I was wondering if I could tear them."
"Mm, I don't care. I throw them out anyway."
And not an awkward bone either. I'd said later, when we do it right out loud, and Dayeon didn't find a single strange thing about the sentence. Sleeping with me didn't seem to register as something weighted or significant — just another thing you did on the way to a promotion.
"...Dayeon."
"Mm?"
"Then can I touch the stockings a little?"
"Now?"
"Mm. Now."
If that's how it is, maybe I can push the touching a little further and she'll just let it happen.
"...Mm. I don't care."
The second I heard I don't care, I glanced at her face, then let my hand slide from her thigh down toward her knee. I hooked past the hem of her suit skirt, pressed lightly at her knee, and eased my way back up.
And then—
The faint rasp of pantyhose, and under it the soft give of her thigh. I didn't reach all the way in. I just ran my hand back and forth as far as the yielding flesh near her groin, feeling the texture of the stockings and the warmth of her skin at the same time.
I flicked a glance sideways. The sensation sending blood between my legs was one thing — the view was another. Dayeon was looking down at her own skirt, her face faintly flushed. She couldn't see my hand under the fabric, but she could feel every movement of it inside.
She seemed to like the feeling.
"Mmmmmm…"
Over the radio I'd turned down to a murmur, a low, rumbling purr spilled out of her. It didn't sound like a moan from anything erotic, exactly — more like the soft, aching little noise you make when something just feels good. Hnnn…
Dayeon had wanted to see me for days. And ever since she'd seen me yesterday, the dirty thoughts had probably been coming whether she wanted them or not. Maybe one of those thoughts had been a man driving with one hand on the passenger's leg.
"Dayeon. Which one is it?"
"Hnn… there. Thaat one…"
"Where?"
"There. The three-story building. There…"
By the time we pulled up in front of her place, Dayeon was pointing at her own building with the face of a cat that had melted into a puddle of catnip.
To park, I was going to have to take my hand off her stockings. Before I did, I closed my fingers and squeezed the soft flesh of her inner thigh. A muffled little uung came from the seat beside me.
I parked cleanly.
"Let's get out."
"Mm…"
We climbed out and I followed her inside.
"You've never been to my place, right?"
"Nope. Never had a reason to."
"Nn… you can just hang your coat and stuff over there."
It was a studio, but a decent one — bed, computer desk, a separate little dining table. Everything you'd expect to find, fitted in without much trouble. I hung both our coats over the chair she'd pointed at.
"Then… Woojin, I'm going to go wash up first."
"No. You don't need to."
"Why? Shouldn't I?"
"Well, normally, yeah… but I think it'd be better if you didn't."
She had such a youthful face that the innocence read even stronger, and right now that face was a living question mark. It made me want to crush her against me until neither of us could breathe.
Actually — why hold back? She needed to earn points from me anyway.
"Dayeon."
"Mm?"
"Come here."
Patter-patter-patter. She trotted over without a second thought. I gathered her small body into my arms, buried my nose in the crown of her head, and breathed in. She smelled like a cat — that warm, faintly sweet scent that clings to their fur and makes you never want to lift your face.
"...Haaaaah."
Yeah. That was why I'd told her not to wash.