A Can with a Stranger
Lee Eunhyuk, age twenty-four.
Male.
The hyuk in his name is written with the character for "shining". The eun, unusually, is not the character for "grace" but the one for a waterway.
Put together, the name means "Shining River".
Why he was given such a name, no one really knows anymore. But since the grandmother who named him had always loved pretty things, he could only guess that she had at least wanted the meaning of a boy's name to be beautiful.
Looking back on the life that followed, though, he couldn't exactly say the name suited him.
He graduated elementary and middle school under the familiar label of "the quiet kid." High school wasn't much different — only that "quiet kid" had shifted slightly into "listless kid."
He couldn't even get a pencil into his hand, and he botched his first college entrance exam. He took a year off to try again. He struggled, flailed — and failed once more. At that point he gave up on university, chewing over the guilt and the sense of defeat.
Too ashamed to face his parents, he left home and started living on his own. Thanks to landing a decent part-time job, he at least never went hungry. Just luck, he still thought even now.
And that was how he had lived — half alive, half dead — up to this day.
Below average. Not quite the pitch-black bottom, but a dim, murky sort of life. He had been living with the vague premonition that nothing much would change from here on out either.
"Mmyah…"
Which was why he could say this with certainty.
"Nngh…? Hmm…?"
He really could say this with certainty.
He had never once imagined that something like this would happen in his life.
"…So soft…♪"
A girl so cute that the word itself was the only one that came to mind was sprawled out on his bed, rolling around. Her voice was drowsy, her expression peaceful. She was hugging his pillow like it was her own and nuzzling her cheek against it.
"You've got to be kidding me."
The muttered line, spoken as he dragged a hand down his face, echoed quietly through the cramped room.
He had brought her home. That was the whole of it. He had gone and brought a person so drunk she was barely conscious all the way back to his place.
Not that he'd had much choice. She had latched onto a complete stranger and mumbled "I don't want to go back" in a way that anyone could tell meant something was wrong. He couldn't just leave her there and walk away. Besides, once she'd clung on, she wouldn't let go.
So he would vigorously assert his innocence. He had simply given shelter to someone who looked like she was in trouble, off the street. That was truly all. He had absolutely not brought her home out of any ulterior mo—
"It smells so warm…"
—brought her home out of—
"Like a full moon in the night sky…"
—brought her—
"A nice sme—"
"Could you maybe be quiet for a second?"
At the request he'd blurted out without thinking, the young woman broke into a goofy, delighted smile, hugging his pillow tight against her chest and gazing up at him with a completely unguarded expression.
"Hehe…"
"You're a bright one, aren't you. Just… completely…"
He muttered it with a slight sigh mixed in, for the sake of holding on to his patience. Unconscious as it almost certainly was, that coquettish little manner of hers was hazardous to a man's reason.
Still, she seemed a bit more sober than before. On the way here she had been so far gone that nothing he said got any reaction at all — but she was a little better now. Good enough to hold a conversation, he figured, so he decided to ask a few things.
"What's your name?"
"My naaame? Cecilia…"
"Cecilia? Hmm. Cecilia."
He rolled the name she'd mumbled so languidly around in his mouth.
Cecilia. No question about it — a foreign name. So she was a foreigner.
Well, with hair and eyes that unusual, he had already half expected it. But her Korean was fluent enough that she didn't seem like a tourist. Naturalized, maybe, or the child of naturalized parents… something along those lines, he guessed.
Still — why would someone like that be passed out dead drunk under the moonlight? It bothered him enough to ask.
"…Why'd you drink so much? Did something happen?"
"Driiink? Mmm~?"
"Yeah. Alcohol."
"Nngh…"
The young woman — Cecilia — shifted sleepily. Her ears twitched, and her tail swayed gently back and forth. Even as he thought Yeah, those are definitely weird, she kept her arms locked tight around his pillow.
"It was right in front of me, so I drank it…"
And at those words, he found himself at a complete loss.
The reason she'd gotten drunk was, of all things, "it was right in front of me"? If that was true, she was basically an alcoholic.
"Right in front of you? Not because you like drinking, or anything like that?"
"I've never had alcohol before…"
He asked again, not believing it, and the answer that came back was even more absurd.
Her first drink — for no particular reason — and she got that wasted?
Or maybe it was precisely because there was no particular reason that she could get that wasted. Either way, he was the one starting to feel dizzy. Even for youthful recklessness, there had to be a limit.
"Ehehe…"
And on top of everything, that total lack of wariness was a problem too. Coming into a strange man's house, lying on his bed, grinning and acting cute — honestly. Drunk or not, she was far too defenseless. Not that he had any right to say so, given that he was the one who'd carried her here.
Where on earth was her guardian, letting her end up like this?
"Where do you live — wait, no…"
He started to ask, then shut his mouth as the words she'd mumbled earlier came back to him.
I don't want to go back.
He didn't know exactly what that had meant. But somehow, he was afraid to ask.
"…Do you have somewhere to sleep, at least?"
What he ended up saying was a different question of a similar kind. Personally, he had been hoping for some rational answer — that she'd rented a hotel room, something like that — but…
"I wanna sleep here…"
"Yeah, figures."
What else could you expect from a drunk person?
He let out a long sigh and dragged a hand up over his face again. What was he supposed to do with this? He couldn't actually let her stay the night…
He glanced over at her.
"Mmnya…"
Just then, as she shifted, the hem of her clothes rode up, and a stretch of pale skin came into view. The soft sensation he'd felt while carrying her earlier rose unbidden in his mind. A faint tingle spread through his fingertips.
And at the same time, what caught his eye was a figure developed far beyond anything you could still call a child. A slender, willowy frame — a full head shorter than him. But two softly swelling curves decorated that delicate body in a balance so precarious it was almost unfair.
"What's wrooong…?"
"Nothing…"
At her voice, he finally snapped back to himself and tore his eyes away.
Had he always been this starved? Nothing like this had ever happened before, but today he could clearly feel desire coiling deep inside him. It was such an unfamiliar sensation, such an unfamiliar experience, that it left him a little shaken.
"Hoo."
He let out a small breath and rubbed at the corner of his eye. He needed to get a grip. In a situation this unreal — like something out of a comic — if he got swept up in impulse and did something stupid, there was no telling what might happen.
"Maybe I shouldn't have brought her…"
Muttering, he reached into the plastic bag on the table. With a rustle, he pulled out a can of beer he'd bought earlier.
All that tensing up and letting go had left his throat dry. Water would have been healthier, sure, but this wouldn't be so bad either.
The can cracked open with a pssht. He tipped it and let the still-somewhat-cold liquid pour into his mouth.
"Pwah…"
The moderate fizz and foam felt good. It seeped into his tired head. At his tolerance, a beer wouldn't get him drunk anyway — reassuring on that front too.
"Ah, I've never seen this drink before…"
The voice right behind him made him flinch and turn around. At some point the young woman — Cecilia — had gotten down off the bed, and she was staring at him with sparkling eyes. More precisely, not at him, but at the beer can in his hand. Like a cat that had just spotted an interesting toy.
"…Want to try some?"
He wasn't entirely sure what made him say it.
Maybe he found it curious that she'd never seen beer before. Or maybe he felt sorry that she'd never tried it. Maybe he figured if she drank more she'd fall asleep faster… or maybe he simply wanted someone to drink with.
Whatever the reason, he pulled a fresh can from the bag and held it out to Cecilia.
She accepted it demurely with both hands. She turned it this way and that, then cracked it open with a pssht.
"Uum…"
Two or three gulping sounds filled the room. After a moment she pulled her mouth from the can and spoke through foam-flecked little lips.
"…Bitter."
"Haha. It's always like that the first time."
Watching her grumble, he couldn't help a small laugh. It was somehow fun.
He raised his own can and took another easy swallow. She, not to be outdone, lifted hers with both hands and worked her way through the contents little by little, her throat bobbing with each gulp.
"Pwah…"
"Like it?"
"Nngh, bitter."
The scrunched-up, complaining face was still the same. Still fun.
After that they simply sat in silence, sipping from their beer cans together.
The hidden circumstances, those ears and that tail… there was plenty to wonder about, but he decided not to worry about any of it for now. On a complicated night, a light drink and then sleep was the best approach, wasn't it? He didn't know why, and he couldn't really guess, but she seemed remarkably well-disposed toward him — so the personal stuff, he figured, could wait until tomorrow.
She started nodding off around the time her can was half empty. Her head tipped, and before long her eyes closed. Not long after that, the soft sound of her breathing filled the room.
He set down his can and carefully lifted her sleeping body. Trying as hard as he could not to notice how soft she was, he laid her on the bed and pulled the blanket over her.
Then he finished what was left in his own can, spread a blanket on the floor, and flopped down. It had been a strange day, somehow. I'll ask about everything tomorrow, he thought, and quietly closed his eyes.
The alcohol had spread through him more than expected. Sleep rolled in not long after he lay down, and it didn't take much time at all for him to drift off.
Morning.
Sunlight filtering against his eyelids and the rumble of a car engine passing in front of the building slowly pulled him from sleep.
"Hwaaam…"
He squinted against the glare, stretched out a long yawn, and sat up. As he rolled his shoulders and extended his arms, he could feel his stiff body loosening, bit by bit.
After a thorough stretch he looked around with bleary eyes. He was on the floor, not the bed, and two empty beer cans sat on the table.
"Ah… right."
As sleep gradually left him, the events of the night before began to come back. On the way home he'd run into someone dead drunk, brought her back to his place, shared a can of beer…
"…I really was bold last night, huh. What was I even thinking."
That was about the sum of his feelings on what he'd done. It hadn't been like him. Just that. No particularly special thoughts beyond it.
"Let's see…"
He turned his head toward the bed. Even while he'd been talking to himself, no sound had come from that direction. Based on that, the young woman was probably still aslee—
"Huh."
…or so he'd thought.
The young woman — Cecilia — was not on the bed. She had woken at some point and come down to the floor.
"…Nnh."
And she was in the farthest corner of this one-room studio, right in front of the wardrobe. Curled up. Both hands wrapped around her own head. Face drained of all color.
"…Wh—"
In a trembling voice. With unstable eyes. Her whole body shaking.
"Where is this…?"
Completely different from the night before.
Looking terribly, terribly terrified, she sat there on the floor.