Moments Destined to Be Remembered Forever
Moments that felt destined to live forever kept stacking up, one after another.
"Want to catch a movie?"
"What kind of movie do you want to see?"
"R-romance…?"
There's a thing like that. In romance movies, when the couple on screen kisses, the people watching do it too.
Pretty romantic, right?
Honestly, we hadn't even made it to Jeju yet, and I was already sampling every new experience I could get my hands on.
All we were doing was drifting around Seoul in the car, and somehow it was still fun.
"Two tickets for Second First Love, please."
"Are you two a couple?"
"Yes!"
Why did hearing a stranger ask if we were a couple feel so good? It was a relief only my mouth got excited. I almost threw my arms around him and announced it like I was bragging.
"Ah—oppa, I've got this."
"Stuff like this, the guy is supposed to—"
"No."
I gave his hand a light swat and stopped him.
The aquarium had been pretty expensive. Just looking around, and it cost as much as an amusement park. It had been fun, sure—but expensive was still expensive.
I'd tried to pay, and he'd come out with that the man is supposed to line and shut me down. It was cool of him, in its way… but I still hated the mindset that the guy always had to foot the bill.
You pay for the person you like. Who tells someone they love to cover everything?
"Hmm, should we get popcorn too? I like original. What about you, oppa? Two large Cokes should be enough, right?"
"Uh, yeah. Plain for me too."
I snagged the card he was about to pull out and paid with mine instead.
"Hey."
"Why are you paying?"
"We're supposed to go Dutch. But you keep trying to settle the whole bill by yourself."
I hugged the popcorn to my chest and headed in. I liked movies well enough, but not enough to seek out theaters on my own—so of course this ended up being my first time at one too.
"Hah…"
"Jihye… I said I'd take care of things properly. Right?"
"Right…?"
"So why do you keep trying to pay?"
Had we gotten our wires crossed? I couldn't quite follow.
"What… do you mean by that?"
"I'm going to marry you, Jihye. Your money and my money—it's the same money."
"Hah…"
"So there's no such thing as going Dutch. Just let me pay."
Oppa was far more grown-up than he looked. Maybe I was the naive one.
"Ah… okay…"
He gave my hair a light stroke, and right after that the pre-movie ads started rolling.
I'd always watched movies on TV. Seeing them on a screen this big, I finally understood why people bothered coming all the way to a theater.
Even the commercials were entertaining on a screen that size.
— Chup.
The movie kept staging situations that felt familiar and completely foreign at the same time. They kissed so early that our Cokes were still full.
Somewhere past the midpoint, a line that sounded like a patchwork of every half-remembered monologue I'd ever heard drifted out of the speakers.
The male and female leads had been each other's first loves. Then the hero came down with some nameless disease. Their wedding plans, their honeymoon—everything fell apart.
Even as every last hair fell out in the hospital, the heroine never let him go. She still loved him.
He wounded her with words he didn't mean. She seemed to know they were lies and refused to back down—but water was already gathering at the corners of her eyes, slipping down in silence.
The hospital room door slammed shut with a heavy sound.
Light drained from the hero's face as he stared toward the window. He looked frailer than anyone, and his expression was nothing but loneliness.
"Hnng. Haa…"
This was supposed to be a romance movie. Why was it this sad? This was clearly locked in for a bad ending.
I'd already checked that a few other people had come in, so I carefully wiped away the tears that had slipped free. My nose wanted to run; I quietly dealt with it using the tissues I always kept in my bag.
"Hic…"
Wait. Oppa was crying too.
I gave his arm a couple of taps and tore off a few tissues for him.
I wanted to say something, but it felt wrong in a movie theater, so I gently took his hand and wrote on it with my finger.
Thank you
"Haa… thank goodness."
"Yeah. When he got better and came back, I was really happy."
"Heh. You were sniffling and crying, though. Was it that sad?"
"Ahem. You cried too."
"I'm a girl. We're overflowing with sensitivity."
Hadn't someone somewhere said a woman's weapon was her tears?
"Ugh… I just can't watch sad things…"
"I'm kidding. It's fine. You can cry. My cute crybaby oppa."
"Augh…"
In the end, we never did kiss. Every tragic scene had worn us down a little, and by the time we hit the final climax, all I felt was glad the hero and heroine had found each other again.
Instead of kissing, we clapped.
"Haa… so what do you want for dinner?"
The second the movie ended I made a beeline for the restroom, and by the time I came back the evening glow had arrived along with a sudden chill in the air.
"How about… sushi?"
"Isn't that expensive?"
"Eating that fried fish cutlet made me curious about sushi."
So I punched the sushi place a coworker had recommended into the navigation.
"Ahem. Are you still sulking? Your tone's gotten a lot colder."
"Ah, no."
After all that crybaby teasing, he wasn't refusing to talk—but a dampness clung to the ends of his sentences. Honestly, though, if it was oppa, I'd figured he might cry.
He was just that gentle. He was even scared of cockroaches; I was the one who caught them.
Moments like that made the difference between naive and gentle stand out crystal clear.
"Then… want to touch my chest?"
"…What?"
"Or… my leg? Stockings feel nice."
Gentle or fierce—not that oppa could ever be fierce—but either way, if you wanted to fix a guy's mood, you treated it with your chest.
For the record, I meant the physical kind, not the metaphorical heart. And I'd heard some people liked thighs, so that was a bonus.
"Urgh… ugh…"
"Don't hold back. It's hard, right?"
Why was he looking at me like he was in pain? What was so difficult about touching once?
"Yaaah…"
I pulled his hand over and made him hold my chest.
"Haah…"
"Ah—!"
The thick, solid feel of it drained the strength from my grip, and like a slippery loach his hand wriggled free.
I'd pressed up against him with parts that weren't my hands before, when I wanted to—but never like this. A sensation I'd never felt, a strange bouncing pressure against my chest, and I let go.
"Hoo…"
"You're embarrassed too, so why are you throwing yourself at me?"
"…I'm not?"
"Your cheeks are bright red."
"It's cold."
"Not hot?"
This oppa had found an opening and refused to let go.
"Ahem. Anyway, how did it feel?"
"Uh…"
"Soft, right? Want to touch again? This time I'll let you touch my legs too—the ones you like."
"S-should we just head straight to the sushi place? It's already six. Augh, I'm hungry."
With awkward movements he shifted gears and pulled out onto the road.
"Too bad… but there's still tonight."
His body flinched for a second, a little tremor running through him, but I decided to pretend I hadn't noticed.
"Haaawn… hmm…"
"We should turn in early tonight…"
"Eh. What are you talking about! Do you know how long I've been waiting?"
I'd prepped everything that needed prepping, okay?
Condoms were a given, and I'd even bought lube just in case things didn't go smoothly.
I'd never even touched myself for pleasure in this body, so I didn't really know it yet—I was just making sure the preparations were solid. When I was a guy, of course I'd done that.
After becoming a woman… honestly, doing it alone in front of a mirror had scared me. I'd gotten worked up enough that my panties went sticky and wet, but I'd just changed them and left it at that.
"Anyway, be ready tonight. I'm booking a room nearby right now."
"We've… been dating less than a month, haven't we…?"
"Some people do it before they even start dating. We're on the slow side."
There was a reason phrases that basically meant sex first, relationship later existed in the first place.
"That's… not right, is it…? Going a little longer, taking things step by step…"
"We're already living together, and you've promised to marry me."
"Umm……"
Apparently out of arguments, he focused back on driving. I reserved a room at a decent-looking hotel nearby…
"Oh, perfect—one spot left."
"Urgh…"
"What. You don't want to?"
"Ah… no, it's fine."
"If I couldn't get one, well… I was going to do it in the car."
"Ehk…"
Oppa jolted like he'd been shocked, then let out something that sounded almost like a sigh of relief—as if a hotel was the better option after all.
"If we put a waterproof sheet in the car, we could keep it clean!"
"Ah… you want to? In the… the car?"
"If you want to?"
He kept his mouth hanging open without seeming to notice, and before long we'd arrived at the sushi restaurant.
"Whoa… is this really okay?"
"Money's for spending at times like this. If all you do is save it, it just sits there making you feel secure and nothing more. What's the point of staring at its value if you never use it?"
It was a plausible enough answer that I half agreed.
"…Huh?"
That was before I looked up where we were.
"Let's eat. Why are you so shocked?"
"Oppa, how much do you think our pork cutlet meal cost?"
He was sharp about money in general, yet clueless about living expenses—what was with that binary way of thinking?
"Uh… thirty, forty thousand won? Around there, right?"
"About seven thousand. Frozen ones run maybe… three thousand?"
"Oh… that's kind of low?"
When I'd been researching pork cutlets, cost had been a major factor. My thrift instinct ran twenty-four seven, year-round.
Thinking back on old purchases and kicking the blankets with a why did I buy that garbage was basically a passive skill of that same thrift spirit… but anyway, the present was better.
"This price… whoa… a bit."
"Ahem. Just eat. Trying it once could help with cooking study, right?"
True to the prices, it was fully reservation-only. Why had he suggested it like we were dropping into a soup joint? What if I'd refused?
"Sigh… fine."
I should have gotten a Japanese cuisine certification sooner. Experiences like this were perfectly doable at home.
"Do you… not like sushi?"
"No. Just… run it by me next time, okay?"
I liked it. I was fond of seafood in general.
Dad loved fishing. On vacation he'd come back having done nothing but fish the whole time.
He wasn't completely obsessed, though—he still carefully maintained the same old rod. Jihyeok-oppa once told me that fishing rod had been around even before I was born. He'd wipe it down meticulously with a towel.
When I tagged along… what I learned wasn't fishing so much as how to clean fish and make spicy fish stew. Cousin Jongssi refused to go, and Mom didn't either. Just the guys, having fun.
After that, we went every year.
And that was how I got good at spicy fish stew…?
I was starting to think my talent for cooking might have come from Dad. Walking back through the scaffolding of memory, his skill at dressing fish had been anything but ordinary.
That quiet, stoic air of his only added to the effect—he had the presence of some Japanese-trained sushi chef.
"…Let's just go in. It's cold."
"Mm."
"Ugh, seriously. Don't look so dejected."
"……"
I had been a little too harsh. Honestly, yeah—for an oppa as gentle as a lamb, it probably hit hard.
I needed to fix this habit of killing the mood with deep, heavy sighs.
"I'm sorry. Cheer up. Oppa? Hello~!"
"Ah. No, it's fine."
"I'm sorry. I think I was too harsh."
"Really, it's not that. I just… don't really know how any of this works. Maybe I'm just bad at reading the room."
I pulled my self-reproaching oppa into a tight hug.
"I'm sorry. Let's understand each other. I was wrong too, and you just made a little slip-up."
"There are so many of those slip-ups, though…"
"Even if you mess up a hundred times, the one time you get it right is what counts. Make as many mistakes as you want. I'll take them all."
He was big, but his heart was soft. His future wife was going to have to take good care of him.
"Come on. It's really getting cold."
"Mm… thank you."
I patted his back as firmly as I could manage. No thumping sound came out.
The sushi… was as good as it was expensive.
Honestly, I already wanted to go again.
I wanted to smack my own mouth hard enough to make a are you kidding me fly out on its own. I'd thrown every tantrum in the book, and by the end my lips were gleaming with oil.
"You go first, oppa."
"Uh… yeah, yeah… okay."
A hotel… this was my first time walking into one as an actual adult. Which is to say, I'd had experience before I was one.
Weirdly enough, at my old school hanging out was never that fun, but whenever someone booked a hotel it was always three stars or better. Sleeping had been genuinely comfortable.
The teachers had probably slept well too.
— Flump.
I let my body fall straight back onto the bed and surrendered to gravity.
The bed. So wide. So nice.
I wanted to sell ours and buy a big one so we could sleep together. Oppa would probably be on board with that.
Though we'd have to put down some kind of vinyl sheet. Otherwise we'd be washing it every day… and this was a hotel, so we'd have to pay for damages.
If there was blood, even…
"Alrighty."
Ready to move straight to action, I opened the suitcase and took out a condom I'd packed ahead of time. Or should I put it back?
…Should I just hold it in my mouth?
"Hoo… I'm do—huh?"
— Thud.
"Ah… okay."
Could he please believe I'd actually been holding a vitamin in my mouth?
This was genuinely mortifying.