The First Line
The first round of draft beer arrived faster than expected. Eunju had never been much of a drinker. Yet she kept bringing the glass to her lips. It wasn’t because she was thirsty. Sitting for so long between the weight of strangers’ gazes and Minjun’s silence made her insides feel parched. Only when the cold beer slid down her throat did she manage a brief, shallow breath. One sip. Then another. Foam clung to her lips, and Eunju wiped it away with the back of her hand—a gesture she would never have made under normal circumstances.
Minjun was watching her. A flush had risen to Eunju’s cheeks. Her eyes had softened a little. The tension that had stiffened her shoulders was easing, and the faintest trace of drunkenness had begun to color the ends of her sentences.
“Do I look strange right now?” Eunju asked. Her pronunciation had blurred ever so slightly. That tiny slip stirred something strange in Minjun’s chest. Only moments ago she had been so cautious under unfamiliar eyes. Now, layered over that caution, he glimpsed the Eunju from long ago—the girl who used to let the ends of her laughter trail off in high school, the childhood friend who would wave at him so naturally even when surrounded by others. The face she had worn before becoming someone’s mother, before life had pushed her forward.
For a moment, Minjun couldn’t breathe. Something he thought he had lost was right in front of him. But it hadn’t returned quietly to his side alone. It was sitting in the bright center of this beer hall, where anyone could see it. Within reach of anyone who might desire it in their hearts.
Minjun was afraid of that truth. At the same time, he knew a crueler impulse was raising its head somewhere deep inside him.
I want to hide her. I want to take her away. I want to make sure no one can see her.
Yet I also want to keep this precious thing seated just a little longer where people can watch. I want to see exactly how noticeable she is. I want to watch until the end how much those gazes make me tremble.
Minjun tightened his grip on his glass. Condensation beaded on the surface. Eunju, unaware of the shift in him, smiled. Whether from the alcohol or not, her guard had loosened a fraction compared to earlier. The knees she had kept primly together beneath the table had relaxed as well. Between her slightly parted legs, the hem of her short pants looked even more precarious. Nothing was truly exposed. But the angle was bad. If the men at the table across the hall decided to look, they might notice the dangerous gap created by Eunju’s relaxed posture and the short fabric.
Minjun saw it. Or rather, he was made to see it. And when he realized the men behind them might see it too, his heart slammed against his ribs. Thud. Once. Then again. The sound seemed loud enough to reach his own ears.
Eunju set her glass down and looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Minjun couldn’t answer right away. His gaze had dipped briefly toward the space beneath the table before rising back to her face. Only then did Eunju seem to sense something; she tried to correct her posture. But the alcohol slowed her movements. Even that slow motion felt strangely vivid to Minjun—the hand tugging at the short hem, the already flushed face, the belated realization in her eyes of how she must have been sitting.
In that instant, Eunju looked unbearably fragile to him. And at the same time, dangerously, heartbreakingly beautiful.
“Eunju,” Minjun called softly.
She blinked. “Yes?”
He leaned forward slightly. “Your legs.”
At those two words, Eunju’s face flushed even deeper. She reflexively drew her knees together. But she didn’t hurry. The combination of alcohol and embarrassment made her movements clumsy. And that clumsiness somehow made her even more herself.
Watching her, Minjun felt his chest ache, burn, and tremble with fear. He thought he understood why he had brought this woman here, yet he still couldn’t fully grasp it.
Eunju lowered her head. “Did you see?”
Minjun didn’t answer. She asked again, quieter this time. “Did… the others see it too?”
The question was small, but it settled between them heavier than the beer glasses. Minjun didn’t turn to look behind him. Turning would make everything too blatant. He only looked at Eunju.
“I don’t know.” Then, after a pause, he added more honestly, “But they could have.”
Eunju’s lips parted slightly. She couldn’t speak. Seeing her face, Minjun felt a sudden shame for the impulse inside him. He reached out and quietly slid her glass toward himself.
“Drink more slowly.”
Eunju looked at his hand. It wasn’t a scolding. It wasn’t a prohibition. It was simply a hand trying to keep her from unraveling too quickly. Only then did she let out a small breath.
“I’m a little…” Her words trailed off. Minjun waited. Head still lowered, she finally managed, “My head’s a mess.”
He nodded instead of answering. That was enough. Eunju really was a mess. It wasn’t just the beer. The weight of people’s eyes. The shortness of her clothes. The fact that Minjun knew it. And the dizzying thought of how she might have looked just moments ago. All of it crashed together, tangling her mind and heart.
Minjun placed his hand over the back of hers. Eunju didn’t pull away. For a long time, they sat in silence. Laughter and music still drifted through the hall. Someone walked past. Someone else glanced in their direction. Eunju no longer tried to check every gaze. Instead, she felt Minjun’s hand.
And Minjun thought that perhaps this was what he had wanted to see. Not Eunju falling apart, but the way she reached for his hand in that precarious moment. How he might behave as a husband in the face of such dangerous beauty. Maybe that was what he had truly wanted to know.
The beer was already half gone. Even after setting her glass down, Eunju couldn’t seem to let go. The lingering chill at her fingertips felt good. Her head was pleasantly light, her cheeks hot, her lips moving slower than usual. Strangely, only her ears remained sharp. The music inside the beer hall. Laughter from the next table. The clink of ice in cups. And Minjun’s breathing across from her. Everything sounded muffled, as if heard through a thin membrane, but Minjun’s voice pierced straight through.
He seemed to think she was quite drunk. Or perhaps he wanted to believe it. His expression suggested that if his wife’s mind had drifted far enough, he might be able to voice words he could never say while she was fully sober.
Eunju knew it, yet pretended she didn’t. She wrapped both hands around her glass and lowered her eyes slightly. Minjun watched her for a long time. Then he spoke, very quietly.
“Eunju.”
“Mm.” Her reply came a little late. It probably looked like the alcohol. Minjun seemed to draw courage from it. He turned his own glass on the table. His fingers slid slowly along its surface.
“I’m a little scared.”
Eunju lifted only her eyes to him. “Of what?”
He couldn’t answer immediately. His gaze was on her, yet somehow also beyond her. The stares of the men who had passed earlier. The tables deeper in the hall. The seat where Eunju sat. The direction he had deliberately chosen. It was as if he were retracing all of it.
“I’ve learned something about myself,” he said.
Eunju stopped toying with her glass. Minjun seemed unaware that she was listening perfectly clearly.
“Every time other men look at you…” He paused, choosing his words. “It scares me.”
Eunju swallowed quietly.
“It really scares me.” Minjun gave a small laugh, though it sounded more like a sound forced out because he could no longer bear himself. “Like someone might take you away.”
“……”
“Like the you I’ve known my whole life could suddenly slip beyond my reach.”
Eunju lowered her head. Those words reached her first. Before desire, there was fear. Minjun was still terrified of losing her. But what came next was different.
“But the strange thing is…” His hand slipped from the glass. “There’s something bigger than that fear.”
Eunju stayed perfectly still. Believing she was too drunk to truly hear him, Minjun grew even more honest.
“Every time you fall into those gazes…” His voice dropped lower. “As much as I want to pull you out, or rather, many times more than that…”
Eunju stopped breathing.
“I want to push you deeper inside.”
The air above the table grew heavy. Minjun bowed his head.
“It sounds wrong.”
Eunju didn’t answer. Answering would reveal she was sober. Minjun wiped his face with his palm.
“I know,” he said. “I know these are things I shouldn’t say.”
Eunju watched his eyes appear between his fingers. They weren’t excited. They were afraid. The eyes of a man who was already terrified of the words that had escaped him.
He continued slowly. “At first I thought I was just amazed that you still looked so beautiful. Then I thought it was because I hated other men looking at you, yet somehow you became even clearer to me. But today…”
Minjun’s gaze flicked down toward her legs for the briefest moment before returning. “Watching you sit there in front of those people, it didn’t feel like I was beside you.”
He stopped. Eunju waited for the next words. Something inside her chest tightened quietly.
“It felt like I was watching from far away,” he said. “Even though you’re my wife.”
“……”
“My friend.”
“……”
“The person I know better than anyone.” His voice cracked just a little. “Yet at the same time, you looked like a woman entrusted to their eyes.”
Eunju tightened her fingers. The condensation from the glass transferred to her palm.
“That scared me,” Minjun whispered. “But…”
He paused again. This silence lasted longer. Eunju was caught between hoping he would stop here and hoping he would finish.
In the end, he continued. “I even wondered what it would be like if those gazes became hands.”
Eunju’s eyelids trembled minutely. Minjun didn’t notice. He was already caught in his own words.
“It wasn’t just someone looking at you with their eyes. I found myself imagining situations that would make you unable to breathe.”
Eunju felt something inside her turn ice-cold, then immediately burn hot. She couldn’t tell if it was terror, shame, or some other emotion she dared not name.
Minjun added quickly, “I’m not saying I actually want that.”
Only then did Eunju let out a tiny breath. Minjun’s face had gone pale.
“I would never wish for something like that to happen to you.” He looked at her—at the face he believed was drunk. “But the fact that such an image even crossed my mind terrifies me.”
Eunju set her glass down. It made a small sound. Minjun flinched. She deliberately blinked slowly, still pretending to be intoxicated. But her ears had grown even sharper.
He watched her for a long time, then lowered his head again. “I wouldn’t be able to bear it if you got hurt.” His words flowed out quietly. “So why do those images keep appearing?”
“……”
“The image of you placed before wolves.”
“……”
“The image of me watching instead of stopping it.”
“……”
“And in the end, the image of me collapsing first.”
Minjun bit his lip. “I don’t know myself anymore.”
Listening to him, Eunju looked at his hand. The one resting on the table was clenched tight. The knuckles had turned white. It wasn’t the hand of a man speaking desire. It was the hand of a man trying to hold himself together.
Only then did she understand. Minjun wasn’t a man who wanted to push her into cruel places. He was a man crumbling beneath the knowledge that such thoughts existed inside him. That realization confused Eunju even more. She had expected to feel disgust. She thought she should be angry. But the first thing that rose was a sense of pity for him. And only after that came the realization that, despite hearing such a confession, she didn’t want to run away.
Because of that truth, Eunju kept her lips sealed. Minjun still believed she was drunk. So he went deeper.
“If you were sober, I couldn’t have said any of this.”
Eunju’s fingertips brushed the rim of her glass.
“You’d look at me like I’m a monster,” he said. “Or you’d be afraid of me.”
Inside, Eunju answered: I am afraid. But the words didn’t leave her mouth. She was afraid, but not of Minjun. She was afraid of the door that had opened inside him. And even more afraid of the fact that she stood in front of that same door.
“Still, I wanted to tell you,” Minjun said. “I didn’t think I should hide how far gone I’ve become, not even from myself.”
At those words, the corners of Eunju’s eyes trembled slightly. He wasn’t confessing under the influence of alcohol. Believing she was drunk, he was practicing on her. Practicing the words he would one day have to say to the sober Eunju in the morning. Or perhaps words he might never be able to say in his lifetime.
Eunju realized it then. Minjun wasn’t confessing his desire. He was rehearsing in advance for the possibility that she might abandon him.
At that moment, laughter erupted from the hall. Eunju reflexively didn’t look that way. Instead she looked at Minjun. His eyes were still on her—anxious, dark, and somehow still boyish. Suddenly she remembered the Minjun from long ago. The male friend who used to smile when she talked about other men. The boy who would pretend nothing was wrong, only to let his face fall once he was alone. That boy had now become a man nearing forty, sitting before his wife and confessing how broken he had become.
Eunju slowly reached out. Minjun looked up in surprise. Her hand settled over his clenched fist.
“Eunju.” His voice shook faintly.
She looked at him with an expression that appeared softly drunk. But her words were clear.
“I heard everything.”
The color drained from Minjun’s face. Eunju didn’t release his hand.
“From the beginning.”
The noise of the beer hall seemed to recede all at once. Minjun couldn’t speak. When he tried to pull his hand away, she tightened her fingers.
“Don’t pull away.”
The words were quiet but firm. Minjun froze. Eunju gazed at him. Her face was hot, her head slightly spinning. Yet the words she needed to say now were strangely, impossibly clear.
“I’m scared.”
Minjun’s eyes wavered. She added immediately, “Not of you.”
“……”
“I’m scared that after hearing those words, I don’t want to run away as much as I thought I would.”
Minjun looked as if he could barely breathe. Eunju slowly pressed down on the back of his hand.
“I don’t know either,” she said. “I hate those kinds of imaginations.” This time she spoke clearly. “I hate the idea of me getting hurt or being pushed somewhere I don’t want to go.”
Minjun nodded, almost desperately. “I know,” he said. “I know that too.”
Eunju didn’t interrupt him. She simply continued.
“But.” She lowered her gaze for a moment, then lifted it again. “The fact that you’ve been looking at me that way…”
“……”
“That…” The words caught. Eunju couldn’t find the right one inside herself. It was too simple to call it excitement. Too narrow to call it displeasure. Too dark to call it love, and too hot to call it fear.
In the end, she gave up on the word.
“It shakes me.”
Minjun couldn’t say anything. Still holding his hand, she continued.
“So we need to draw a line.”
He looked at her. Eunju took a slow breath.
“I want to let you see the strange things inside me. But I won’t do anything I don’t want.”
“Yeah.” His answer came immediately. “Of course.”
“And.” She gripped his hand more tightly. “If you get scared, you have to tell me too.”
Minjun pressed his lips together. Eunju looked straight at him.
“It’s not just me who stops. When it’s time for you to stop, you have to say so.”
Minjun’s face slowly crumbled. Whether from relief, guilt, or both, she couldn’t tell. He lowered his head.
“I’m sorry.”
Eunju gave a tiny shake of her head. “Don’t be sorry yet.”
He looked at her. Eunju’s cheeks were still flushed, and the haze of alcohol lingered in her eyes. But there was something different in them now. She was no longer only the gentle wife he had known. She was the woman who hadn’t run away after hearing his confession. The woman who, despite hearing something terrifying, was trying to turn those words into rules.
Quietly, she said, “We still don’t know anything yet.”
After a long moment, Minjun nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then.” Eunju didn’t let go of his hand. “Let’s go as far as we can know.”
When those words ended, the foam in the beer glass between them slowly dissolved. The people in the hall were still laughing. Some glanced their way. Others passed by, knowing nothing. But between Minjun and Eunju, a very small line had just been drawn. A line of prohibition. A line of promise. And perhaps the first line they would have to hold onto for a long time so they wouldn’t cross it together.