B-Class Hunter Han Sohee — Invitation (1)

After thrashing the suspicious intruder within an inch of his life—

"Next time, please don't put us in this kind of situation... We were lucky the CCTV caught everything."

"Haha. I'll be more careful next time."

"Understood. Please do be careful going forward."

"Yes, yes. Take care on your way out."

After handing the thoroughly wrecked thug over to the police who'd arrived late to the scene, Taejin gave them a vague promise to be more careful and sent them on their way. It helped that these were the same officers who'd seen a knife get shoved into his gut last time—they let the whole thing slide without much fuss.

This level of personal retribution barely registered as a problem in Korea. As long as you don't kill anyone, they figure it's fine, he thought. And with Hunters involved rather than ordinary civilians, there wasn't much choice in the matter anyway.

In any case, once the police were gone, Taejin headed back to the dorm, fell asleep in high spirits, and woke the next day. He regaled his seniors with the tale of how he'd handled the guy, put in a solid shift at work, and clocked out at a reasonable hour. His plan for the evening was simple: go home, put on some MeTube, and drift off.

The video of choice: a one-hour compilation of Garam's cutest aegyo moments.

He'd just started the video and snapped a verification selfie when—

His phone started ringing. Taejin mostly texted rather than called, so he frowned at the screen in mild confusion—and then his eyes went wide.

"Huh?"

The person calling was none other than Sohee. A genuinely unexpected contact. In all the time he'd known her, Sohee had never once dialed him. They always talked face-to-face. So why a phone call out of nowhere?

He puzzled over it for a second, then the answer clicked.

Ah. Right. I caught that guy yesterday.

The memory of subduing the thug the night before came flooding back. Taejin finally pieced together her reason for calling and picked up. There was really only one thing this could be about.

And the conversation that followed lined up almost exactly with what he'd expected. She asked how he'd known the man would be there, and he explained that he'd felt uneasy and decided to do a night patrol—which was how he'd spotted the guy. She nodded along on the other end, fully convinced.

They traded a few more small bits of conversation after that, until—

"Tomorrow?"

Tomorrow was his day off. No work. He'd planned to loaf around and do absolutely nothing all day. So why was she asking?

The question flickered through his mind, but since he genuinely had no plans, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he answered honestly. Sohee's voice ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠brightened immediately.

"A meal?"

Taejin noted, not for the first time lately, that free meals seemed to be falling into his lap with suspicious frequency—and prepared to turn her down.

"No, you really don't have to go that far..."

After all, he'd half-caught the guy for personal reasons. The man had stuck a knife in his gut. Accepting a home-cooked meal on top of that felt a little too much like freeloading. He was about to refuse properly when—

"Uh... well, if you insist, what time should I come by tomorrow?"

Faced with her stubborn insistence, Taejin finally gave in. Keeping up the refusal would have been rude at that point.

Taejin agreed, and they hung up. He sat there for a moment, wondering whether he ought to feel good about the free dinner or vaguely guilty about it—when his phone lit up again.

Garam had clearly seen the selfie of him watching her aegyo compilation—and she was having a full-blown meltdown. Taejin found the whole thing adorable. When he texted back asking why she was so worked up, she only freaked out harder. Peak Garam.

Meanwhile, while Taejin was busy flirting with another girl—

The woman who'd just invited him over, Han Sohee, was currently sprawled across her enormous sofa, letting out a squeal of pure joy.

"I-I did it!"

The reason was simple. She had finally, properly, invited Taejin to her home for a meal.

It might have seemed like an overreaction for something so small—but from her perspective, it made perfect sense. Taejin was her savior. No—more than that.

Ugh... I want to just confess right now... but I can't, can I?

He was the object of her crush.

Looking at it objectively, of course she felt this way. He'd kindly helped her when she was at her lowest. Later, he'd even taken a knife for her when that strange man was chasing her down. And when she'd tried to offer him a reward afterward—

"No, the money's fine. I make a decent living myself—not as much as some people, but enough."

—he'd turned it down.

"Then... if you ever need healing, please come to me anytime. I'll heal you whenever you need it."

"That's also too much..."

"This is really just my personal way of saying thank you..."

She'd barely managed to talk him into accepting free healing if he ever got hurt. A modest man who put himself in danger for a woman—how was she supposed to not fall for someone like that? It would have been stranger if she hadn't developed feelings.

So Sohee had been steadily signaling her interest. Making eye contact during conversations—something she almost never managed with other people—and initiating physical contact more actively than usual.

The problem was that her eye contact got interpreted as a breakthrough for her social anxiety, and her skinship got completely overshadowed by Han Seoyoung, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who was always right there doing far more of it, far more often. Sohee's touches registered as nothing more than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠light, casual contact.

Yes. From Sohee's point of view, Seoyoung was half a romantic rival. Seoyoung might have been an obstacle to love, but Sohee didn't hate her for it—of course not. Seoyoung was the one who'd introduced her to Taejin in the first place, and she barely seemed interested in romance anyway.

The real problem was that Seoyoung had been eyeing Taejin with particular intensity right up until her departure, which only made Sohee want to confess that much sooner. But a woman who'd struggled just to hold a conversation with people a few months ago wasn't about to casually pour her heart out.

Couldn't she just walk up to him with that body of hers and have him fall instantly?

Not wrong, exactly. But the biggest issue was that Sohee herself had no real grasp of her own appeal. You'd think weapons of that caliber would be hard to overlook—and she did know, on some level, that what she was carrying was impressive. The problem was that she had no idea just how devastating the effect actually was.

T-Taejin wouldn't fall for something like that, right?

That classic crush-induced fantasy lived rent-free in her head. The truth was, if Sohee tried to seduce him with her chest, Taejin would refuse once for form's sake and then scramble to get his hands on them the second she pushed. If she'd understood men even a little, she would have immediately recognized the sheer power of what was attached to her body.

But she'd gone to all-girls middle and high schools, paired almost exclusively with other women or married men for Hunter work—other women had been deliberately keeping male Hunters away from her, though she never realized it—and as a result, she knew almost nothing about men. You could argue that adult social life should have taught her something, but she'd never been particularly interested in romance before Taejin came along. A lifelong single like Sohee was more or less bound to end up like this. Add in her severely low self-esteem, and her current state of mind was inevitable.

Even so, today she had finally mustered the courage to invite Taejin over for dinner—and succeeded.

Honestly, she'd been fretting for days about how to ask him. Then the police had suddenly called to say the man she'd previously reported for stalking had been caught—and that the person who'd caught him was the same man who'd been stabbed last time. The shock nearly knocked her over. She'd been terrified Taejin had gotten hurt again and was about to contact him in a panic, only to hear that he'd subdued the man without a single scratch. The relief had been overwhelming.

If he'd gotten hurt again, I really would have...

She probably would have fallen apart completely. There had been a stretch when Taejin had looked so unwell that she'd wanted to approach him several times, but he'd seemed so rough she couldn't bring herself to get close—and the anxiety had nearly driven her insane. Later, when she'd run into him on the street and worked up the nerve to invite him shopping, he'd seemed better, which had been a genuine relief.

In any case, having successfully extended the dinner invitation, Sohee lay there thinking for a while before finally pushing herself up off the sofa.

F-first, I need to get the ingredients ready.

All those hours spent practicing recipes while watching MeTube were about to pay off. She prepared the food with far more thoroughness than usual—though whether by coincidence or not, the dishes she chose were conspicuously heavy on stamina-boosting... that is to say, virility-enhancing ingredients. Why, exactly?

J-just in case...

She told herself it wasn't like that. But the distinctly impure thoughts swirling behind the claim were hard to ignore. She kept lying to herself as she prepped the ingredients—heart pounding, full of nervous excitement.