EP 4. First Date (2)
"Hey! Lee Hyunwoo!"
I opened the door, and there stood Chaea in a dress I had never once seen her wear.
So she knew how to dress like that, huh. I'd figured she'd show up in the same old school uniform or a plain T-shirt at most — because that was how it had always been.
"What? Why are you looking at me like that? I worked hard on this outfit today — is it bad?"
"...No."
"Then does it look weird? Maybe I should've just gone more casual?"
"No. That's not it either."
"Then what is it?"
The words caught in my throat. I knew, at least in theory, what a person was supposed to say at a moment like this.
You look pretty.
That one line was all it would take, yet for some reason it refused to come out. While I was still wrestling with it, my mom popped up behind me and stole the moment.
"Ooh, look who's all dressed up today! Where are you two off to?"
Chaea's face went red in an instant.
"H-hi, Auntie. Hyunwoo and I are just heading downtown to hang out."
"Still joined at the hip, you two. Inseparable since you were little, the both of you."
"Well, of course. It's not like I have any other close friends."
"Oh, honestly, this kid. You must have more friends than our Hyunwoo, at least."
Mom laughed at that and disappeared into the kitchen. Chaea stole a glance up at me.
"You haven't told her, have you."
"How was I supposed to? It happened yesterday."
"Fair point. I haven't been able to tell anyone yet either."
Chaea tapped the toe of her shoe against the entryway floor. She looked like she had more she wanted to say. In the end she turned away without another word, and I had no intention of digging to find out what it was. If she had something to say, she'd say it — that was just the kind of person she was.
"...By the way, I haven't showered yet."
"What?"
Chaea turned around very, very slowly.
"Do you know what time it is right now?"
"Nine forty-five."
"We're meeting at ten."
"Exactly. Fifteen minutes left."
"Lee Hyunwoo."
There it was — my full name. This was getting dangerous.
"Sorry. I couldn't fall asleep last night."
Chaea stared at me for a long moment, then let out a sigh. She kicked off her shoes and strode inside.
"I'll wait, so go wash up. Fast. I'm giving you thirty minutes."
"There's only fifteen left?"
"And since I showed up early, I'm crediting you the difference. But if you go one minute over thirty, I am genuinely going to scream."
Before I could get a word in, Chaea had already claimed her spot on the couch.
Well, nothing for it, then. All I could do was hurry up and shower.
It was only after the bathroom door clicked shut that my head finally cleared. Before the mirror fogged over, my face flashed across it once — my eyes were puffy. After crying the way I had yesterday, that much was only natural.
I wondered whether I could really go out looking like this, but there wasn't exactly a remedy on hand. All I could do was press cold water around my eyes a few times and hope for the best.
Showering itself went off without a hitch. The problem was my clothes. I stood in front of my open closet for a full five minutes.
A black T-shirt, a gray T-shirt, a white T-shirt — and then a whole row of identical shirts in slightly different shades. I had never once thought of my wardrobe as strange, and yet somehow, today, I had nothing to wear.
In the end I grabbed a black T-shirt — the one whose collar had stretched the least. The moment I finished getting ready and moved to head downstairs, voices drifted up from below.
"Chaea, are you still studying hard these days?"
"Oh, yes. Getting by, anyway."
"Make Hyunwoo study too, will you? I tell that boy to do something, he says okay, and I have never once seen him actually do it."
"Hyunwoo studies pretty hard too, actually — just where nobody can see him."
"Oh, really? At home, apart from when you come over to play, all he wants to do is game all day. Well, good for him if he's working hard out there."
Mom's laughter drifted up the stairs. I stopped midway down and tilted my ear toward the voices.
"Come to think of it, Chaea, don't you have a boyfriend?"
"I do."
"Oh my, really? Who is he?"
"Secret."
"Oh, come on, you can tell me. It's not like Auntie has anyone to go blabbing to."
"Ha, just kidding. I don't, actually. Weirdly enough, there are no good guys around me."
"Oh, is that so? Then what about our Hyunwoo?"
"Hyunwoo?"
My hand tightened around the stair railing without my meaning it to.
"Oh, Auntie, come on. Hyunwoo's... you know."
"What? What's wrong with my son?"
"He's just a friend. I've known him since we were kids, so maybe that's why — I don't really see him as a man."
Mom doubled over laughing.
"Right? He's hardly what you'd call a man, that one. Even I can see it."
Their laughter filled the living room together. And I — the actual subject of the conversation — stood halfway down the stairs, listening to every word of it.
When I came down the rest of the way, Chaea was sitting on the couch eating watermelon. Four rinds already stacked on her plate told me I had, in fact, taken my sweet time.
"Twenty-six minutes. I'm almost presentable now that I've washed up, right?"
"You actually timed it?"
"Obviously. So those really were the best clothes you had?"
"I'd have to go out and buy clothes with my own money to have anything better... I picked this from the least-worn options, thank you very much."
"Next time, we're going clothes shopping together."
Mom said it while looking back and forth between the two of us.
"You two aren't hiding something from me, are you?"
"Nope."
"Right, of course not. Chaea did just say she doesn't even see you as a man."
"...Of course she did."
"Just make sure you're home on time. No matter how much fun you're having with Chaea, you are not coming home past ten. Got it?"
"I said I got it."
With that, Mom finally disappeared into the kitchen. Chaea went on chewing her watermelon, eyes on me the whole time.
"What."
"Nothing. Nothing at all. Let's go."
The heat hit my face the second we stepped outside. It was barely past ten, and already a shimmer was rising off the asphalt.
Damn global warming.
"Hey. Han Chaea."
"What, calling me? Got something to say to me?"
"I heard what you said back there... I wasn't eavesdropping, for the record. You told my mom you don't see me as a man."
"Yep."
"And yesterday you said you liked me."
"Yep. I do like you."
Chaea answered without missing a beat.
"So what was that, then?"
"Listen carefully. If I say I don't see you as a man, your mom can relax. If she relaxes, nobody thinks twice about us going out together. And if nobody thinks twice about it, then I get to stay by your side even longer. See?"
I had plenty I wanted to argue back, but the words flowed out of Chaea so smoothly that I found myself with nothing left to say. Had she rehearsed this beforehand?
"...Your brain works way too fast."
"I told you, I study hard."
"Somehow I don't think that's what the studying was for."
"Whatever I use it for is my business."
Chaea, walking a step ahead, turned her head halfway back and kept going, a mischievous look still on her face.
"Besides, you said you didn't have anyone either."
"Huh?"
"When your mom asked if there was something going on."
"What does that have to..."
"You could've just told her we're dating, you know?"
What kind of answer was she fishing for? From the way she grinned, I could tell it wasn't a sincere question — but not knowing what answer she wanted was driving me out of my mind.
Just then, a bus came into view in the distance.
"The bus is here."
"Hey, you just dodged the question, didn't you."
"I did not dodge anything. That is seriously our bus. If we miss it, we're waiting another twenty minutes."
I hitched my bag up higher and broke into a run. Chaea shouted something after me, but the stop announcement swallowed it whole. I tapped my card and glanced back to see Chaea bounding up the steps, one hand pinning down the hem of her dress. She smacked my arm on her way past.
"That was so unfair. Seriously."
"What was?"
"Answer me later. Today."
The fact that she'd even given me a deadline meant she was, apparently, letting it slide. It would have been kinder of her to just say I didn't have to answer at all.
Thankfully, the bus was empty. Chaea took the window seat, and I sat down beside her. Somehow, today of all days, the distance between us felt far too close. A single fist would have fit between us, so it wasn't that close, really — but after some deliberation, I edged away a little anyway.
Chaea just looked out the window for a while. Then, resting her forehead against the glass, she spoke.
"Why are you running away?"
"I'm not running away. There's plenty of room, so I figured I'd sit comfortably."
"...Right."
"Then why do you keep moving away? This much is allowed, isn't it?"
Chaea leaned her body sideways and pressed in even closer than before. Then she stared straight ahead as if nothing at all had happened.
Our shoulders touched. Even with the air conditioning blowing full blast, having her pressed against me like that made the point of contact feel just a little bit warm.
The moment we stepped off downtown, Chaea had her phone out and was firing off words like a machine gun.
"Okay! Here's today's course. Photoism is just a short walk from here, so we go there first. Then we head down the alley eating ice cream, and lunch is around twelve. This afternoon it'll be too hot, so we move indoors."
"So you had the whole thing planned out already. Can't we just start indoors? It's hot."
"Nope. Every single step is planned for a reason."
Listening to her rattle it all off, a laugh slipped out of me. It wasn't as if she were reading off a school field trip itinerary.
I drifted around behind her and stole a peek at her screen. The memo app was packed with dense lines of text — numbered, organized by time of day, with bracketed notes tucked in between.
[Backup course if it rains]
[If Hyunwoo gets hungry, start here*]
[If it gets too awkward, just go home]
My eyes snagged on the last line. And at the same moment, the date stamped at the top of the memo jumped out at me.
It was from last year.
"Hey, you wrote this last year."
"I told you not to look!"
Chaea yanked the phone against her chest. Then, as if nothing had happened, she started walking ahead of me. Just how long had she been planning this?