Chapter 8
Chapter 8
“Shall We Head Home Together?”
“…”
Perhaps because of the brief commotion earlier.
After leaving the bungeoppang street cart, we fell silent for a while.
For the two of us, who hadn’t had a single moment of silence since we first met, this was unusual.
Just as I was thinking I should say something to ease the awkwardness,
Seorin, who had been quietly walking, suddenly took a bungeoppang out of the paper bag and handed it to me.
“Here, take this.”
One of the two bungeoppang she bought for herself.
I stared blankly, not understanding why she was handing it to me, and Seorin waved her hand as she spoke.
“Hurry up. It’ll get cold.”
“Why are you giving that to me? You bought it to eat yourself.”
“You said you’d take one earlier.”
“The one I had fell on the ground, so it’s gone. And I don’t really need to eat much anyway. You eat it, Seorin.”
In truth, I wasn’t particularly desperate to eat bungeoppang.
I only planned to eat with her so she wouldn’t feel awkward eating alone beside me.
“It’s a reward. For helping me earlier. So will you take it?”
But she remained firm.
Looking straight into my eyes, she showed an unyielding determination to give this to me.
In the end, I surrendered.
“Alright. I’ll eat it.”
“Yes!”
Not sure what made her so happy.
She handed me the bungeoppang, then took out the last one and bit into it herself.
Letting out a pleased “mmm,” her eyes widened slightly.
Seeing that, I couldn’t help but laugh softly, and she noticed.
“Why are you laughing?”
“No, it’s nothing. Just thought of something funny.”
“You’re lying.”
Did my laughter flip a switch in her?
Suddenly, she asked me carefully,
“Am I too childish?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Getting this excited over eating a single bungeoppang… and getting serious about arguing with that drunk guy earlier. I feel like I’m not very mature.”
Watching Seorin look down dejectedly like that, I think to myself.
…That’s unexpected. So she has this side too.
From her appearance and the way she’s acted so far, she seemed pretty cool, but she’s actually a bit more sensitive than I thought.
To be worrying herself over something so trivial.
But even that side of her didn’t feel unpleasant—it felt human, and strangely endearing.
“Everyone’s basically like kids, I guess. I have my childish moments too. Honestly, I think mentally I’m not much different from when I was in high school.”
“Really? From the way you act, you seem pretty mature, Lee Jun. Even just now.”
“Well, I am older than you.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m 27.”
I didn’t know her exact age, but it was clear Seorin was younger than me.
She didn’t look like someone in her late twenties.
“…You really are older than me.”
“Right? So I should act a bit more mature.”
Getting older isn’t something to brag about, but it does mean experience.
“Of course, I’m not always like this. When I’m with friends, I can be pretty childish too. I’m just kind of pretending to be an adult.”
“Why pretend? Is it because I’m a girl?”
“Something like that, I guess?”
At my joking remark, Seorin snorted softly in disbelief.
“Hey, Lee Jun.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to make a good impression on me?”
A question whose intention was obvious.
And I answer honestly.
“I guess so?”
“Why?”
Her smiling eyes looked straight at me as she asked.
She knows the answer already, doesn’t she.
“There are two answers—an honest one and a polished one. Which do you want?”
“The honest one. I hate it when people beat around the bush.”
“Alright. I’ll be honest.”
“Go ahead.”
“Because no man in the world doesn’t want to impress a pretty woman, right?”
“Pfft. Puhaha… hahahaha!”
Trying to hold in her laughter, she eventually bursts out laughing at my answer.
Seeing her like that, I can’t help but laugh too.
“Why are you laughing? I’m serious.”
“I’m laughing because you’re serious. I didn’t expect you to answer that honestly.”
“You told me to be honest, and now you’re reacting like this?”
“Oh my gosh, my eyes are tearing up. Lee Jun, you’re really an interesting person.”
Laughing loudly, she wipes the tears from the corners of her eyes and finally calms down.
Then she asks me, testing the waters.
“So… am I not your type?”
“Not at all? I like honest and fun people. That’s exactly my type.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
That simple statement—“my type”—made my heart start racing uncontrollably.
Seorin had no idea.
She didn’t realize how much those words had set my heart on fire.
And instinctively, I could tell this was something like a signal of approval from her.
An implicit permission to try approaching her.
If that’s the case, then there was only one thing I needed to say.
“Seorin.”
“Yes? What is it?”
“Even though this area is along a main road, it turns into an entertainment district in the evenings, so situations like today can happen sometimes.”
At my sudden remark, Seorin looked at me, confused.
As if answering her doubt, I continued.
“There are often drunk people wandering around. Isn’t it a bit scary for a woman to go home alone?”
“That’s true. I live alone, so it can get scary sometimes. Especially since I usually get home late after studying.”
“So, what I mean is…”
“Yes.”
“Starting tomorrow, shall we head home together after we finish?”
Even without any romantic experience,
I knew I had to be the one to take this kind of step.
As the saying goes, fortune favors the bold.
So with a slightly trembling heart, I made my intentions clear.
“…I like that.”
Seorin quietly smiled and nodded.
After returning home, Seorin finished her shower and lay down in bed.
Normally, she would have already fallen asleep by now, but tonight her eyes were wide awake.
She glanced at her phone, but even that failed to hold her attention, so she simply lay there staring at the ceiling.
“I can’t sleep… this is bad.”
She needed to sleep for tomorrow’s studies, but
a strange tension ran through her body, making it impossible to rest.
“No man in the world doesn’t want to impress a pretty woman, right?”
That line suddenly came back to her, and without realizing it, she gripped her blanket tightly.
It was a long-lost feeling of excitement.
The lingering sensation still made her heart beat pleasantly.
That was the reason she couldn’t fall asleep in the middle of the night.
Lee Jun.
A former viewer of hers, and someone she met by chance at the café as a job-seeking companion.
He had told her she was pretty.
“…He was cool. Really mature. Lee Jun.”
Thinking about him, the events of earlier came back to her.
What happened in front of the bungeoppang cart.
The way he stepped forward in front of her when the drunk man raised his voice and approached, standing protectively between them.
It would be a lie to say she didn’t feel her heart flutter at that moment.
After all, women are especially weak to such detailed and romantic gestures.
And he was different from most men.
Of course, Seorin had never been in a relationship before, so she didn’t know exactly how typical men behaved.
But men full of bravado might have taken her side, argued with the drunk man, and escalated things unnecessarily.
She had seen people like that on the street or at part-time jobs.
But what Lee Jun chose instead was a polite apology.
He calmly and maturely sent the drunk man away, even taking her feelings into account with careful consideration.
When he first apologized on her behalf,
she had been surprised—but she had thought to herself:
This person is thinking about my feelings in this situation.
“Did he say he was 27?”
Even though there were only two years between them, Lee Jun seemed remarkably dependable.
Though when he talked about Ravier, his behavior was almost endearingly childish.
Seorin found that contrast—mature yet occasionally childlike—quite appealing.
So much so that she realized for the first time that this might be the type she liked.
And when he expressed his interest in her,
“Starting tomorrow, shall we head home together after we finish?”
When he said that, she tried to act composed, but her heart felt like it would burst.
The reason she hurriedly agreed, then fled home as if escaping him, was because of that.
If she stayed with him any longer, she felt like he would notice how flustered she was.
“‘I like that,’ huh… ugh.”
It was such a simple sentence, yet somehow it felt embarrassing and cringeworthy.
If she had to say it again now, she was sure she couldn’t.
Feeling her face heat up again, she slightly pulled down the blanket to let in some air.
Otherwise, she felt like she would spend the night endlessly overheated despite the cold winter.
“I want to talk more with Lee Jun.”
The words slipped out of her mouth without her realizing as she thought of him.
She could no longer deny that she had developed feelings for Lee Jun.
…She wished tomorrow would come quickly.
Ever since becoming a job seeker, her days had felt dull.
Each day was simply something to endure while working toward making a living.
But for the first time, today made her look forward to going to the café tomorrow.
She could study while seeing Lee Jun, talk with him during breaks,
and go home together with him afterward, just as he had suggested.
Perhaps that’s why.
Without realizing it, she thought:
“…Maybe I should ask him to eat together tomorrow.”