The Signature and the Lie
I timed it perfectly. The moment she headed off to wash up, I cleaned myself too. By the time I was waiting on the first floor, Seo Haeun stepped out of the elevator wearing a fresh change of clothes.
A gray hoodie and thick jeans that suited the chilly March weather. No accessories at all. Her shoulder bag hung loosely from one shoulder instead of crossing over her chest. Add a hat and a mask, and she’d look exactly like a celebrity trying to hide her face. Even with her hair still slightly damp and tousled, she was undeniably attractive.
The outfit was casual enough that I could’ve worn it without looking strange, but on her it was different. Even in that baggy hoodie, her voluptuous figure stood out. Clothes might make the man, but in the end, it all came down to the body. The body.
I had broad shoulders too, so clothes hung well on me. If I’d only had muscle without the frame, I probably wouldn’t have gotten any women back when I was a player.
“...What is it? Were you waiting for me?”
“You said you’d give me an autograph. I figured you’d be the one waiting.”
“Haah… Fine. Yeeun… I mean, Jia. I’ll give you Jia’s autograph.”
The instant she saw me, her face crumpled into a deep scowl. I gave her a casual wave, and though she frowned even harder, she trudged over to me. She rummaged through her bag, pulled out a single album, and handed it over.
“Here. The autograph. Take it.”
“Ah, thank you.”
I’d expected nothing more than a signature on a sheet of A4 paper. But when I peeled off the sealing wax and took out the enclosed photo card, I found a perfectly idol-like autograph pressed firmly in cute handwriting, complete with little ballpoint pen indents. There were even a few extra lines written in that same neat script—standard idol lines about being grateful, working hard for fans like Kang Juhyuk, and so on.
…If I had actually been a real fan, I probably would’ve been deeply moved. But since I honestly didn’t care that much, it left me strangely flustered.
“...Did Seo Jia write this herself?”
“Yes.”
“Wow…”
“I kept my promise, so you keep yours too.”
Apparently taking my stunned reaction as delight, Seo Haeun spoke with a slightly triumphant tone. That confident expression reminded me of her from a few years ago and soured my mood for a second. But then I realized that back then her face had been full of venom, unlike now, and I shook off the disgust.
…That was then, and this is now. Back then I’d picked a fight with her for professional reasons. Now I was making a move on her for personal ones. Well, in both cases, her chest had been the root cause. That part was pretty similar.
“What promise?”
“I told you not to bother me.”
“I won’t bother you. I don’t even know your number or address.”
“Look, can you stop saying scary stuff like that?”
“It was a joke. Just a joke.”
“I’m actually scared, you know. I’ve had experiences like that before.”
“Ah… I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine as long as you understand. We won’t have anything to talk about from now on anyway.”
While badmouthing that worthless fly of a man who wasn’t entirely blameless, I built rapport with her again. There’s nothing more pleasant to hear than someone trash-talking a person you hate.
Seo Haeun kept muttering things like “don’t do it” and “don’t talk to me,” but she still answered me properly every time.
“Still, we can at least greet each other once in a while, right? Do we really have to pretend we don’t know each other even though we do?”
“If you talk to me from now on, I’ll report you, so don’t.”
“Sure, sure.”
She’d probably keep saying that. The phrase ‘I’ll report you if you talk to me!’ actually meant she wouldn’t report you if you spoke to her in an appropriate way. As long as I didn’t become a nuisance, our relationship could continue to develop.
“Anyway, thank you so much for the autograph. As a token of my appreciation…”
“I’m not going.”
“Why not? It’s lunchtime. I wanted to at least buy you a meal.”
“...Excuse me, Kang Juhyuk. I can see right through the way you’re hitting on me, you know?”
The reason this woman kept pushing me away wasn’t simply because she disliked me. It was also because she sensed I was sexually dangerous. No matter how much I tried to hide my gaze, I couldn’t stop it from drifting to her chest. So I had no choice but to mix in a very small lie.
“It’s not like I’ve only seen one or two guys like you…”
“Hitting on you? I have a girlfriend.”
“Huh?”
Having a girlfriend didn’t mean you couldn’t cheat or hit on other women, but there was no better excuse to use for plausible deniability.
“I’m at an age where I’d obviously have a partner.”
“...”
In reality, my mental state had been shredded during rehabilitation, so I hadn’t been able to maintain a girlfriend. Even back when I looked perfectly fine, I had never actually dated anyone as a ‘girlfriend.’ They had all been sex friends. And when I thought about cleaning up my wild lifestyle to get a real girlfriend, the sex friends I was seeing at the time felt too precious to give up. But keeping them while trying to date someone honestly pricked my conscience.
“I’m really just grateful and want to buy you a meal, so don’t misunderstand anything weird. Just eat quietly. I know some good places.”
“...Just this once.”
“I wasn’t planning on buying you two meals anyway. Oh, if you give me one more autograph, I’ll buy you another meal. How about it?”
“That won’t happen.”
“Aw, come on. By the way, do you happen to be close with any of the other members…”
“I’m not.”
More than anything, I had always hated clinging to a woman this pathetically just to seduce her. When it was purely about bodies, there had been no need for such formalities or lies.
…Which was different from the kind of relationship I wanted with this woman.
“The karaage here is really good. I make it at home sometimes, but it never turns out quite like this.”
“...At home?”
“It’s not that hard. I’m just lazy about it.”
Sucking up to someone you dislike isn’t exactly pleasant, but it’s not unbearably awkward either. I had done it to death during team life. Even the greasy, sly compliments felt easy once I thought of them as sucking up to my seniors.
“...”
“What? Why are you looking at me so suspiciously? I’ve lived alone for a long time, so I’m pretty good at cooking.”
“Ah, I see.”
“I’m serious. Really.”
I was lazy about it. But Seo Haeun was a woman worth enduring that laziness for.
“Do you have Instagram?”
“Pardon?”
“Oh, I saw you taking pictures of the food. I was just wondering.”
“...No. I don’t. Not these days.”
“So you used to.”
“It’s just… when I was working, it became a hassle.”
It would be a lie to say I felt zero malice toward this woman, but I didn’t hate her enough to want to kill her. Likewise, I had no intention of dating her by constantly yielding to her. I wasn’t interested in her heart at all.
What I wanted was her body, and to resolve the bad blood that had built up between us over the years.
“You must’ve been really popular. Didn’t you have a lot of followers?”
“Not really.”
“I find that hard to believe. Your little sister is famous too.”
“...I stopped after she got famous.”
It was a bit grandiose to call it revenge. If there was an overwhelmingly pretty woman among your coworkers, everyone tried to seduce her. If she was the boss’s or the director’s daughter, it only made her more tempting. And if her personality was rude on top of that, and she had even caused you harm, the desire multiplied several times over. You wanted to pin her down on a bed.
…Literally. You wanted to own her.
“Ah, the steamed egg here is delicious too. It’s kind of like pudding.”
“...You really eat everything.”
“Japanese food is usually like that. Salty and sweet. I didn’t used to like strong flavors, but after eating so much of it with my girlfriend, my tastes have gotten a bit childish.”
“That really doesn’t suit you.”
“You mean it doesn’t suit me to have a girlfriend?”
“No, no. I meant liking sweets doesn’t suit you. With your appearance.”
“Well, I do look like the type who’d only eat chicken breast. I really did eat like that when I was a player.”
Even though she was wearing a hoodie, I could still sense the fullness of her breasts. Those mounds that wouldn’t fit in my hands—hands twice as big as most women’s. The soft texture I could imagine just from looking at her skin. I wanted to savor every detail before grabbing them roughly.
“But there’s no real reason to manage my body so strictly anymore. Since I have someone I’m seeing, I stopped being picky about food. I don’t think she’d leave me just because I lost a bit of muscle.”
“...You and your girlfriend must get along really well?”
“Ah, it’s not that great. Just the usual comfort that comes with being in a relationship. You know the feeling, right, Haeun?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“There you go lying again. There’s no way you wouldn’t know.”
Was she pretending to be innocent? Or maybe she really was.
“I really don’t. Seriously.”
“Were there only people like that trainer around you?”
“I worked for the club, you know.”
“Ah, right. That makes sense.”
“Shouldn’t you not say it makes sense? You were one of them too.”
“I’m not a baseball player anymore. And it’s true there were a lot of men like that.”
This woman who didn’t seem to have much luck with men.
“Kang Juhyuk, you say some really harsh things. I didn’t know you had this kind of personality.”
“What kind of personality did you think I had?”
“If I say it, you’ll get angry, so I won’t.”
I wanted to betray this woman who had let her guard down so easily just because I mentioned having a girlfriend.
“That was meant to make me angry, wasn’t it?”
“It was.”
“That’s too much.”
I wanted to turn that mysterious expression of hers into a panting, disheveled face until even that sense of betrayal melted away.
…Someday. Until she apologized with her own mouth and spread her legs for me.