To the Club with Hyung Dong-min
After coming home from the drinking party, I rested thoroughly at home through the following day. Seok-gi and Man-hyeong must have failed in their attempts to work on Miho after all—around one in the morning she sent me a KakaoTalk saying she was sleeping over at A-young's place with Ju-young. On Saturday she messaged again to say she would be spending the weekend with her family at her maternal grandmother's house.
Fortunately, the fact that she kept reaching out first suggested Ju-young hadn't gone fishing for my contact info from her, or floated the idea of becoming sex partners. Of course, thinking it over, there was no real need for me to hide that from Miho—and yet the truth was that telling her something like that still left me with a twinge of guilt.
Han Ju-young.
She was bolder than I'd expected. Those smiling eyes and the way she flirted had already told me she was no ordinary tease, but I hadn't imagined she would come on that direct and aggressive. Ju-young's body was definitely the kind you wanted to wrap your arms around once. Full breasts, a broad pelvis, and especially those well-fleshed thighs so ripe they made you think that if you slept with her, her whole body would cling and mold around you like sticky rice-cake dough.
And knowing she was a woman Seok-gi—that kid who'd been throwing hostility my way—had already had only stoked my competitive fire further. Hearing from Ju-young's own mouth that I was better than Seok-gi would have felt pretty damn triumphant.
The thought made me laugh at myself. A thirty-two-year-old man getting worked up over a twenty-two-year-old kid! It struck me that I still had a long way to go before I could call myself a real adult.
I spent all of Saturday at an easy pace—watching TV, gaming, heading out for a workout, catching up on laundry and cleaning—until before I knew it the clock had hit midnight. About two hours earlier Miho had sent me a group selfie of her whole family.
It was the kind of thing actual couples did. A part of me found that a little overwhelming. I wondered whether she was confusing a sex-partner arrangement with something more like a situationship. If she started getting clingy later, that would be a problem… I fretted over how to draw a clear line. And yet, looking at her bare, fresh face without makeup for the first time in a while, I couldn't help smiling anyway.
I lay down on the bed and opened Instagram. Miho's Reels had a video from last night's drinking party. It must have been after I'd left—the venue had changed, and everyone was thoroughly wasted. Seok-gi was slumped against a wall, asleep. And waiting for me were two friend requests.
A-young and Ju-young.
Whether it was Instagram's algorithm or whether they'd gotten my account from Miho, the two of them had lined up friend requests for me. I accepted theirs and sent requests of my own. After browsing other people's profiles for a while, we were mutuals before I knew it.
Their accounts weren't fully public, so once we were friends more posts unlocked. Everyday snapshots, photos with other friends, pictures a little more explicit than the ones set to public—all mixed together.
I'd been looking at their photos for quite a while when the screen went black and a call came in from Hyung Dong-min.
It was already two in the morning.
"Hey, hyung. Business going well?"
"Yah, why've you been so distant lately? Do I always have to be the one who calls first?"
"Aigoo, I'm sorry. I figured our boss was busy, so I held off."
"Listen to that smooth talk… Yah, whatever. You free around seven tomorrow?"
"Morning? Evening?"
"Ah, this guy… You think a man who runs a night business is going to be up at seven in the morning? Evening!"
"I can make time. Why?"
"I know a place with some good water. Want to come along?"
"Good water? Sure, I'm in. Where?"
When Dong-min said the water was good, he never meant anything else. He was talking about an establishment. I'd been sitting there salivating over A-young and Ju-young's Instagram, so the invitation was music to my ears. With Miho unavailable all weekend, the timing was perfect.
"You remember Fox from back then? The manager there."
"Ah! That bar?"
I remembered. Before COVID, Dong-min and I had been regulars at that talking bar—the female manager, a woman around Dong-min's age, elegant, skilled at handling customers. Dong-min had worked tirelessly trying to get her into bed.
"Yeah. The owner there opened a place last summer. It's a secret spot. The girls are solid. The kind of dirty ones you like."
"Combat? Or visuals?"
"Visuals are a ten, and combat on top of that. Straight-up World War II level."
"Nice. But what about the shop?"
"That's why we're going at seven. Leave the opening to the manager here and let's go blow off some steam together. I haven't been out because of the shop lately—my body's itching for it."
"Sounds good. My body was itching today too, so this works out."
"I'll send you an address near the shop. Meet me there."
The next day.
The address Dong-min sent was a café not far from Miho's university.
"Oh, you're here? Let's go. We've got a bit of a walk."
The moment he saw me, Dong-min stood up and hustled me along.
"Looks like you finally got some rest? You're in a real hurry."
"Yah, don't even start. Between prepping for the shop opening and the chaos after we opened, I feel like I took a month or two off."
"Where is it?"
"No sign. They've been operating under the radar because of COVID. About a block from here."
"How'd you even find out about it?"
"Manager Kim called me. Said she was only reaching out to people she was close with first. They're running it as an associate-member system—started without a sign because of the business restrictions—and she asked me to come help out a bit."
"Then you could've told me. You've been enjoying that good stuff all by yourself this whole time?"
"You need to watch yourself, you little shit! You worked hard for a good job—you can't go stretching your legs out over nightlife and wrecking it. Instead, this hyung of yours sized up the situation, and now that the timing's right, I'm calling you, aren't I?"
"Well… I am grateful. You always look out for me like this."
"So? You get any water out of your system in the meantime?"
"Me? Me, well… all thanks to you, hyung!"
I answered with a snicker, and Dong-min looked pleased as he threw an arm around my shoulders.
"You little bastard! Didn't I tell you? Hyung would help with everything! How about it? Timing wasn't killer?"
"Yeah, the timing was perfect."
"You could hear it all the way outside the room… How was she?"
"She's a good kid. Agreed to keep seeing each other for a while."
"Oh, yah. Here it is, here. Let's go in and talk."
We arrived at a shabby two-story building inside an old industrial district. Dong-min glanced around to check whether anyone was watching, then darted down the building's stairs. At the bottom of the basement steps an iron door blocked our way. A CCTV camera above it was trained on us and the stairwell.
Dong-min pressed the call button mounted on the wall.
"This feels like a movie."
I said it with genuine admiration. Dong-min snorted a laugh and slipped his hands into his pockets.
"Once you're inside, a whole new world opens up. Manager Kim—no, she's the owner now. Kim Sa-jang bought this entire building. Before long she's going to remodel the whole thing and expand the business upstairs too. For now it's just the basement."
Clank.
The iron door opened, and a solidly built man in a suit greeted us. Beyond it was yet another iron door. The man rapped the second door with his knuckles, and someone inside opened it. He bowed to us and disappeared into a small office-like room off to the side.
"Welcome, sir. We've been waiting for you."
A man in a waiter's uniform bowed politely to Dong-min and me.
"Yeah, good. It's been a while. Is the owner in?"
Dong-min clapped the waiter on the back and strode ahead as he was guided.
Just as Dong-min had said, the interior was nothing like the shabby exterior. Marble tiles and classical Greek architectural details filled the space. There was none of the cheap red carpeting you saw in low-end rooms; the walls were lined with columns in the classical style, and the high ceilings made it feel as if we'd stepped into a temple of Zeus. The lighting was bright white, giving the place less the air of a secret drinking den and more the impression of a sunlit café.
There were exactly two rooms. As Dong-min had said, they seemed to be keeping the number low for membership-based operations. Inside, gray sofas ran along the walls in a full circle, and the large table in the center had a thick tempered-glass top with legs styled like Greek columns.
"I'll bring the owner right away."
The waiter bowed and left. I looked across at Dong-min and said, impressed,
"Yah, the interior's great!"
"I told you it was solid. Kim Sa-jang's got some taste. This building sits in one of the few narrow commercial zones permitted in this area—hers and the one next door—and somehow she put in the legwork and found just the right spot. She still hasn't filed for a business license because of COVID, but she says she's about to start that process and open properly. Even the interior contractor is a member here. Not just anyone can come. Only the people Kim Sa-jang contacted first, plus a few she already knew—and each of them can bring at most two guests."
"Aren't we pushing it a bit today? The prices must be steep…"
"Ahem! Come on… Don't worry about that kind of thing! I'm Jang Dong-min! Anyway, tell me about it. That young chick."
"Ahh…"