The Soju Tastes a Bit Bitter
"Good work~"
"Thank you for your hard work~"
"Thanks~ You take it easy too~"
Once I'd finished clearing the tables, I stripped off my apron and tossed it aside.
I fired off a quick text to Eun-a saying I'd be a little late, then headed straight to the counter, added drinks to table twenty-seven's tab, and pulled two bottles from the liquor fridge.
"What, you're not leaving?"
"No. Someone I know stopped by. Thought I'd have a few drinks with them before I head out."
"Yeah? Then those are on the house."
"Whoa—! Boss, you're the best—!"
"Just don't cause trouble like last time."
"Come on, when have I ever done that?"
…Which was a bold claim, considering even I felt a twinge of conscience saying it. I had caused my fair share of trouble.
But nothing that ever hurt the shop's bottom line, right?
Bottoms up~.
"I'm here. Wow… just how many bottles have you had?"
"Hmm… one, two, three… five bottles! Want some?"
"Obviously. Two bottles of Jinro—and I got them free, no less!"
"Hell yeah—! That's my Gaeul!"
The moment I set the two soju bottles on the table, she snatched them up. Then, with a smooth roll of both wrists, she spun the bottles in tandem.
Now that… is the face of a true alcoholic, isn't it…?
"I already shook them on the way over."
Not that I had any room to talk.
I loved drinking myself. If Eun-a called offering to buy whiskey, I'd ditch my friends mid-hangout and bolt without a second thought.
But what guy wouldn't, when the girl he likes is offering to feed him bottles that cost hundreds of thousands of won…
As she filled the clear soju glasses, Sujeong noona—no, unni—hummed under her breath. Despite how much she'd already put away, there wasn't so much as a hint of red in her face.
Does she have two livers or something?
"Shall we toast first?"
"Yep."
"Alright then~ To Gaeul and Eun-a dating~ Cheers!"
"Thank you~ Oh, and thanks for the clothes earlier too~"
"That little thing? That's what I'm here for. Ahh—! Delicious!"
Sujeong noona—no, unni.
The word noona was so stuck to my tongue that I kept defaulting to it.
Anyway, the second she emptied her glass, unni refilled it and knocked that one back too, one after another.
"Aren't you drinking a little fast?"
"Ah— it's fine, it's fine. I ate a ton of meat earlier."
I had plenty I wanted to say, but she insisted she was fine, and I already knew her tolerance from the times the three of us—her, Eun-a, and me—had drunk together. So I just sipped my own soju and left it alone.
At the next table, one of the other part-timers was staring at me with pure envy written all over his face.
Knocking back drinks at your own workplace the second your shift ends… even I had to admit it was equal parts inconsiderate and luxurious.
I flashed him a smug V-sign and a triumphant grin. His face curdled on the spot. He started to raise a finger in retaliation, then froze mid-motion—as if he suddenly couldn't remember why he'd wanted to flip me off in the first place—stared blankly at his own hand, and ended up apologizing to me instead.
He was a year younger, a guy junior. We were the only two from the same school, so we'd been on free-speech terms and gotten along decently well.
But now that I was a woman, the dynamic had clearly shifted.
Just like it had with my friends.
"…The soju tastes a bit bitter."
"Does it? That's because you've been drinking too much whiskey! Your palate's gotten spoiled on all that fancy stuff."
Then… what about the person sitting right in front of me?
I propped my chin in my hand and watched unni diligently working through her soju and chewing her meat.
It was inevitable, I knew that—but the way everyone's attitude toward me had changed still hurt.
"Hmm? What's wrong? Tired from your shift?"
"Mm… no. You said you came to talk about Eun-a."
"Yeah. That's right."
"So… you're against it?"
"Against it? Of course not~ I'm all for it! Love that transcends social status! Love that transcends sexual orientation! Uh… sexual orientation?"
Maybe it was the relationships I'd built back when I was a guy, but even after the change, something about the situation still seemed to throw her off a little.
She tilted her head for a moment, then beamed.
"Ah, gender! Love that transcends gender! How cool is that!"
Her bright smile faded into a wry one as she poured soju into my empty glass.
"…Really. Thank you for not leaving Eun-a's side when she got outed and those nasty rumors started spreading."
I'd heard variations of that before—thank you for being close to Eun-a.
But the weight behind the words was different now.
Not the gratitude of a close friend of Eun-a's, but the gaze of a guardian.
And hearing thanks from someone like that stirred a strange little hunger for recognition in a corner of my heart.
I smiled brightly and told her she was welcome. She smiled softly back and went on, her tone calm and even.
"Those bastards should all be grateful to you, too. When the Chairwoman found out they'd outed her on purpose, I honestly thought there was going to be a bloodbath at the company. But you looked after Eun-a at school, cleared up the misunderstandings… and it all blew over without any real damage."
Not that those types would ever feel grateful.
The words she added after that came out low and savage, like a beast growling. The flash of hostility between her smiling eyes wasn't aimed at me—I knew that—and it still stung enough to make me flinch.
Seeing my expression freeze, Sujeong unni reached out with both hands, cupped my cheeks, and started squishing them.
The sudden skinship caught me completely off guard.
Thinking of Eun-a, I probably should have pulled away—but the gentle, warm smile on her face locked my body in place.
Up until now, my impression had been that things with women hadn't really changed much, relationship-wise.
The boss was the same. The girl juniors, too.
But maybe that was only because I hadn't been particularly close to any of them?
Boss and part-timer. Senior and junior at a part-time job. Even when you got along well, there was always a certain distance you couldn't quite close.
But she was different.
She'd been an opposite-sex friend—someone who wasn't especially interested in me romantically, but who I could still hang out with comfortably, even if not quite on Eun-a's level.
That opposite-sex friend had become same-sex. And just as the guys had grown more careful around me, unni's sense of distance toward me seemed to have collapsed far more than I'd expected.
The relationship had changed, sure—but unlike what I'd braced for, it hadn't pulled us further apart. So that was… fine?
At least, having only ever experienced people pulling away, this felt like a clear improvement.
The twinge of guilt toward Eun-a was unavoidable, though.
"I still can't believe it. Calling that a 'warning,' of all things…. They have no idea how displeased the Chairwoman is with them."
Unni fretted as she kneaded my cheeks like dough.
"The Chairwoman really has no luck with children. The executives would rather have Eun-a join the company—illegitimate or not, whatever—just because she's loved by the Chairwoman and doesn't have a greedy bone in her body."
"That bad?"
"Yeah. So much so that she told the secretarial team to dig through Everytime so they can respond fast if anything like this happens again? Closing the barn door after the horse has bolted…. Anyway, the point is—you two dating is already all over our company."
"What…."
So it wasn't just unni who knew.
The thought of elite conglomerate employees monitoring our university's Everytime and treating our relationship as office gossip left me feeling vaguely peeped-on.
…Not entirely a bad feeling, maybe?
The Chairwoman—Eun-a's mother—I'd only met once, but she'd been a good person. Open-minded in every way that mattered. She hadn't opposed Eun-a being gay; she'd even advised her to properly check someone's character no matter who she dated.
The hardest barrier had already been cleared. Whatever the people under her had to say about it, it wouldn't amount to much.
In other words, the same thing I'd been doing—going around telling everyone I was Eun-a's girlfriend—had simply expanded from campus to a corporate office, different venue, bigger scale.
As far as I was concerned, that was something to celebrate.
"…And those bastards got caught by the Chairwoman badmouthing you and Eun-a for dating again?"
"What…."
"Their guts must be twisting inside out right about now, huh? Anyway—you and Eun-a just date happily without a single worry. They can't touch you. At most they'll snark from the sidelines?"
"Isn't that foreshadowing…? That just makes me more anxious."
"Come on. It's fine~ It's fine~ If Eun-a joined the company she might run into some interference here and there… but she already said she doesn't want to, so…. Even if they try to pull that shady rumor crap again like last time… we'll be watching. And more importantly… you're at school."
Unni pressed my cheeks in hard, like she meant to squash them flat, and beamed at me with pure sunshine.
Only after she finished talking did she finally let go. My face was tingling—probably bright red.
"Hmm…."
"What's wrong?"
As I rubbed my cheeks, trying to soothe the heat, unni flexed her hands open and closed and tilted her head.
"Gaeul… are you not wearing any makeup?"
"Uh… no."
Come to think of it, I'd been forgetting to put on lotion.
For days straight.
The unfairly superior skin elasticity of a TS beauty had made me completely forget.
I'd have to borrow Eun-a's.
"Ha…."
At my answer, she exhaled a long, hollow breath—like someone who'd just been confronted with a terrible truth.
"…Can you pour me another drink?"
"Uh… um… sure…."
What was that about.
Why the sudden shift.
This was someone whose mental fortitude could cheerfully unpack the kind of office politics that filled you with pure misanthropy… and right now, her eyes looked like she'd given up on everything.
She knocked back the soju I poured in one go after another, then opened her mouth with a bitter smile.
"Today… the soju tastes a bit bitter."
"Y-yeah, it does…."
But only for a moment. She composed her face into something adult and steady, met my eyes squarely, and smiled.
"Well. Anyway, we got sidetracked. What I actually wanted to say isn't much. Congratulations on you two dating… and as Eun-a's longtime friend… I'm really grateful to you. For staying by her side. Eun-a likes you a lot. A whole, whole lot. More than you think—and for much longer than you realize. So… I hope the two of you live happily. Not that an outsider like me has any business weighing in. Haha…."
"…Thank you too, unni."
Really—thank you.
Thank you for saying that.
I'll be happy.
I want to be happy.
Together with Eun-a.