Han River Date (1)
"Stop touching me!"
The sharp female voice rang through the train car, and every head in the subway turned toward the commotion. Kim Hyunsoo looked back too. The older woman he'd noticed at the very beginning — the one whose hand had been lingering on him — was now being seized by the wrist by a woman with long, straight pink hair.
"This ahjumma was groping this young man's butt!"
The pretty pink-haired woman shouted loud enough for the whole crowd to hear, making a spectacle of it on purpose.
Putting the pieces together, it seemed the old woman had indeed been grabbing his rear. Kim Hyunsoo felt his anger rising as he raised his hand — and then slapped the middle-aged woman across the cheek. If a young woman had touched him, he might have let it slide, but an old woman groping his butt was something he could never forgive.
The woman's legs buckled the moment his palm connected, and she crumpled to the floor. Then she scrambled back up in a panic and tried to flee — only to be caught by the pretty woman.
"Call the police, call the police! I've got it all on video!"
Thankfully, it looked like the evidence had been secured. If the ahjumma had played dumb and insisted she'd never touched him, things could have gotten messy — but there was no need to worry about that now.
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The ahjumma was dragged off by the police. The video the pink-haired woman had recorded showed her hands on Kim Hyunsoo's rear in crystal-clear detail, leaving her with no room to argue. She was hauled away without so much as a protest.
"Thank you so much, really."
Kim Hyunsoo offered his sincere thanks to this unexpected guardian of justice. He was the kind of man who knew how to be grateful for a woman's kindness. Apparently some men would run off in embarrassment after being rescued like that, but Kim Hyunsoo simply couldn't understand it. If someone helped you, surely the decent thing to do was to say thank you. And at the sight of him bowing his head so earnestly, the woman waved both hands in a flurry.
"Oh, no... that's not... I wasn't doing it to get thanked or anything..."
Still, perhaps because that thanks had come from a handsome, well-mannered man, the corners of her mouth were curling upward despite herself. It was only natural to feel good when a man praised you — after all, in this world, women were always the ones begging at the door.
"You helped me, so I consider thanking you a matter of basic courtesy."
At Kim Hyunsoo's neatly reasoned words, the woman nodded as if she finally understood, then leaned in slightly to offer him a bit of advice.
"From now on, try to ride the Men's Only Car whenever you can. If you take the regular cars, there are a lot of perverted women like the one you just saw."
A men's only car? Come to think of it, he'd seen a car earlier with barely anyone in it — that must have been the one. Honestly, he didn't imagine it would feel great riding in there. A subway car filled with nothing but men like himself. But then again, between that and getting his butt fondled by a crazy ahjumma again, the men's car didn't seem like such a bad option.
At least another man wasn't going to grope his butt. Well — unless some gay guy was in there, in which case Kim Hyunsoo genuinely felt he might commit murder. A man touching his butt? A horrifying thought.
"I'd like to repay you somehow, if you'd let me..."
It was absolutely not because she was a pretty woman. It was purely the duty of someone who'd been helped. But contrary to Kim Hyunsoo's expectations, the woman shook her head firmly.
"No, really, it's fine. Well, I'm off!"
And with that, she darted away. Kim Hyunsoo watched her retreating figure for a long moment. Had it been a mistake to offer a reward? She'd seemed so flustered by his offer that she'd bolted. Or maybe that was just his own ego talking. He was still mulling it over when his phone rang.
"Oh no!"
A text from the Boss. Since Shin Yuna didn't have his personal phone number yet, she must have sent the message through her instead.
Between running into a groper and dealing with everything that followed, he'd completely blown past the appointed time. He was nearly ten minutes late. Shin Yuna would be worried — no doubt imagining he'd gotten into some kind of trouble on the way. Kim Hyunsoo fired off a quick text saying he was on his way and started running. He'd already arrived at the destination station, so the Han River wasn't far. Just a short sprint away.
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"Hyunsoo-yaa, over here, over here!"
Not long after leaving the station, he reached the meeting spot. Shin Yuna was waving both arms from a distance, beaming as she welcomed him. Kim Hyunsoo broke into a run. Being late to an appointment and then strolling casually was a crime.
"Noona! I'm so sorry."
He apologized properly. Like it or not, Shin Yuna was a paying client who had purchased his time and his service. This was not a lovers' date. Even if he'd been thrown off by an encounter with a groper, the fault was still his — though in Kim Hyunsoo's defense, there were certainly mitigating circumstances.
"Aww, Hyunsoo-yaa~ it's fine, anyone can run late."
Shin Yuna said it like it was nothing at all. Checking her expression, Kim Hyunsoo saw that she genuinely didn't mind. Still, he didn't want any misunderstandings, so he explained what had happened on the way here — how he'd run into a groper on the subway and been rescued by a young woman.
At first, Shin Yuna just stared at him in shock.
"You ran into a GROPER!?"
Subway gropers weren't exactly common. It wasn't as if there were swarms of women willing to gamble their whole lives just to grab a man's butt. From what he'd heard, only the truly hopeless cases — women living train-wreck lives — behaved that way. Then Shin Yuna's brow furrowed.
"And this young woman helped you?"
"Yes. She even recorded video for me, so I got through it without any trouble."
"Was she pretty, by any chance?"
Kim Hyunsoo noticed that Shin Yuna didn't seem particularly bothered by the groper incident itself. Instead, she'd started interrogating him about the woman who'd come to his rescue, prying at every detail. Reading the mood, Kim Hyunsoo gave her an answer she could be satisfied with.
"No, she was pretty average. Nothing special at all."
"Really?"
Only then did Shin Yuna's expression relax. She seemed to have been treating the woman as a rival. It wasn't unheard of, after all, for a man rescued by a woman in a moment of crisis to fall head over heels for her.
The suspension bridge effect, you might call it. Thankfully, there was no trace of that in Kim Hyunsoo. And hadn't she declined to give him her number and simply walked off? She hadn't even gotten his phone number yet — if some woman he'd met for the first time today had walked away with it, that would have been unacceptable. The balance of fairness would have been completely off. Having settled the matter in her mind, Shin Yuna looked at him and declared:
"Today, we're having the most fun ever!"
"Absolutely. And since I was late today, we'll play that much longer."
"Really?"
"Yes. It was my fault, so I have to make up the time."
"Yayyy!"
Shin Yuna cheered like a little kid. Watching her, Kim Hyunsoo smiled softly. The woman who'd saved him on the subway had been pretty, sure — but Shin Yuna was every bit her match. If he'd had to compare them, they were so equally lovely he couldn't possibly pick between the two.
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Shin Yuna strolled through the park practically glowing with excitement. Naturally, she never once let go of Kim Hyunsoo's arm. There were couples walking the paths, but the park was mostly filled with groups of women who'd come out with their friends. Bathed in the envious stares of those losers, Shin Yuna's mood soared even higher. So this was what it felt like to go on a date with a man — this dizzying, wonderful thing. She felt like she'd been shortchanged on half her life.
She finally understood what people meant by walking on clouds. Dating a man was simply the best. A date with Kim Hyunsoo was something she'd trade her life for without a second thought. The two of them ducked into a café for a while — the day was hot, and staying out too long had become a bit of a struggle.
Inside the café, Shin Yuna and Kim Hyunsoo chatted over cold drinks. On their first date, Kim Hyunsoo had done most of the talking while Shin Yuna answered; now the roles had flipped, with Shin Yuna chattering away and Kim Hyunsoo responding and chiming in.
Apparently, the women of this world talked about as much as the ones back in his original world. It was like they had motors attached to their mouths. She talked so much, so freely, she seemed ready to announce the color of the panties she'd put on this morning.
"So I got caught by the Mother Superior, right..."
"The Bishop is so strict, it's exhausting..."
"I always wanted to become a Holy Maiden, but ever since I met you, Hyunsoo, I feel like my heart's been wavering a little..."
Shin Yuna rattled on with endless energy. Kim Hyunsoo brought the straw to his lips and sipped his drink. Listening to her stories under the cool blast of the air conditioning was rather pleasant. Of course, it helped that Shin Yuna was a beautiful woman.