Pink Line of Death
As I left the cafe, I lightly caught Jihyun’s sleeve.
“Jihyun, are you busy? If it’s okay, do you want to come over to my place and hang out?”
“Suddenly…?”
“The truth is… I can’t decide what to wear when I meet him. I need your eye for fashion.”
Jihyun hesitated for a moment before nodding, her eyes now mixed with curiosity. The strange bond formed by repaying a favor and sharing a secret was what moved her.
The living room of the high-rise apartment in Seongsu-dong was drenched in sunset pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The moment we stepped inside, Jihyun stared blankly at the Han River and let out a short sigh.
“Seolah, you really have everything.”
There was more resignation than envy in Jihyun’s indifferent voice. To her, who had streamed from a shabby rented room under a single paper-covered lamp, this luxurious space must have looked like scenery from another world.
“Even if you have a lot, what if you might die tomorrow? How would that feel?”
To my half-muttered reply, Jihyun snorted that I was even joking in unrealistic ways, but the D-13 in the corner of my retina still burned crimson.
I led Jihyun to the dressing room. The moment I opened the door to the walk-in closet attached to my bedroom, her mouth fell open. It wasn’t the luxury logos that stunned her, but the wardrobe far too glamorous and meticulously organized for an ordinary college girl.
“Here, I need your eye. This is what I’ll wear when I meet him tomorrow.”
“You… really live in a different world.”
Jihyun narrowed her eyes, scanning the hangers, then shook her head.
“No. These are too model-like. Too perfect, so it actually makes it harder to approach you.”
“Then what should I wear?”
“Men lose their minds over ‘something that looks like it needs protecting, yet carries a sexiness only I want to know about.’”
Jihyun boldly reached between the garments and pulled out a pale pink chiffon dress that had been shoved into the corner.
“Try this first. Go change and come out.”
I took the dress and slipped into the small powder room beside the closet. The male ego still lingering inside me found it awkward to change into women’s clothing with another woman present.
I shed the knit and jeans, then slipped on the thin chiffon dress. Standing before the full-length mirror, an unfamiliar silhouette I had never encountered in my life greeted me.
“Are you changed?”
When I stepped out, Jihyun’s eyes widened more than usual.
“……Wow.”
In the mirror, the terrifying destructive power of the body named Cha Seolah was fully revealed even to me. The airy chiffon looked pure enough to flutter away on a spring breeze, yet it was far too thin to hide this body’s overwhelming curves. The tall 170cm frame, the slender waist, and the F-cup breasts pushing taut against the fabric. The neckline plunging deep below the collarbones caught the eye in a dangerously precarious way.
“Seolah, you… your body is seriously cheating.”
Jihyun approached as if in a trance and ran her fingers along my waist. The moment her cold fingertips touched me, I flinched involuntarily.
“Hey, isn’t this too sexy? I feel awkward wearing stuff like this.”
“No, it’s perfect. The point is that the clothes are innocent but the body isn’t. The type you described—someone like Baek Gangho—would lose it more over you wearing this with an expression that says you don’t know anything than if you tried to seduce him on purpose.”
“…I see.”
“Outfit approved. Now make the plans. If you don’t send it right now, you won’t meet him tomorrow.”
“Now? He probably hasn’t cooled off yet…”
“That’s exactly why you say let’s talk face-to-face and make up. Here, write exactly what I tell you.”
Unable to resist Jihyun’s pressure, I typed the message. My fingertips trembled faintly with every character. After I pressed send, the two of us stared at the phone on the living room table as if it were a live bomb.
One minute. Two minutes… During the heavy silence, I swallowed dryly.
To distract from the anxiety of waiting for a reply, Jihyun sat me down at the vanity.
“Special training until the reply comes. Your eyes are way too sharp right now. Make them hazy in front of him. And let your lips look a little smudged…”
Jihyun rummaged through her pouch and pulled out a brush. Overwhelmed by her serious expression, I sat still and let her work on my face when the most efficient solution suddenly crossed my mind.
“…Jihyun, honestly he might loosen up right away if we just go to a PC bang and play a match together. Aren’t we both overthinking this?”
At my abrupt suggestion, Jihyun’s brush froze in midair. She looked down at me with an expression that said she’d heard absolute nonsense, then slapped my forearm.
“Ah, seriously! Say something that makes sense. And stop talking about PC bangs—use that beauty of yours!”
“Ow…! It’s just that he’s really into that game lately…”
If it were the old me, I would probably be grinding that game hard right now.
“Hey, are you seriously planning to sit there in that dress wearing a headset tomorrow? Say something that makes sense.”
Jihyun applied tint to my lips with open distaste. My forearm stung, but I clicked my tongue inwardly. If it was Baek Gangho, he’d like it better if I queued as his bot duo… I kept the thought locked inside.
The Baek Gangho I knew would be more touched by the casual comfort of staying up all night gaming and sharing cup ramen than by any fancy date course.
But my current appearance was far too excessive to show that kind of same-sex-friend charm.
The special training lasted for hours. Jihyun taught me the exact angle to tuck my hair behind my ear, how to arrange my skirt when sitting, and even how to hold Baek Gangho’s gaze for over three seconds before shyly looking away.
“To think I’m teaching this to a girl who was planning to go to a PC bang and play games…”
Jihyun let out a stunned laugh as she gathered her things. At that moment, the phone on the table vibrated once.
The tone was still curt, but the fact that he had agreed to meet meant we had cleared the first hurdle.
“Perfect. Eleven means we can start with lunch. Tomorrow, do exactly what I told you. Understood?”
Jihyun slung her bag over her shoulder with a satisfied expression. As she headed for the door, she paused, turned back, and gave me a strange smile.
“Cha Seolah, tomorrow put everything I taught you into practice. If that Baek Gangho guy still doesn’t fall for you after seeing all that… then he’s either impotent, or it means you’re truly too precious for him.”
After Jihyun left, I stood in front of the mirror once more. Cha Seolah in the pink dress looked so beautiful it felt alien even to me. I wondered whether I was overcomplicating things with a guy who would have been fine after one game at the PC bang, or whether this really was the “woman’s way,” just as Jihyun said.
She had laughed as if my words were a joke from someone lightly in love, but the D-13 blinking on my retina was a deadline that refused to be laughed at.
To me, this attempt wasn’t romance. It was a desperate fight for survival.
In the dreary one-room apartment near the university that I had moved into only recently, I sat in the darkened room staring blankly out the window. On the desk, the convenience store drink I had bought while waiting for Cha Seolah at the main gate yesterday rolled around inside its plastic bag.
Yesterday, she never showed up. To be exact, she had sent one short text right before the appointed time—an apologetic notice that a sudden department event meant she couldn’t come.
How could I describe the feeling the moment I read that message? My head understood that it couldn’t be helped if something came up, yet the version of myself who had sat through an entire day of classes while waiting for that moment felt endlessly pathetic.
A student from a different department. Someone I hadn’t even properly confessed to yet. Every time I confronted that wall, I felt powerless. I briefly considered going to find her at the department event, but I immediately shook my head. That was the line I had drawn for myself.
In the end, that’s all the position I hold.
As a sigh laced with self-reproach filled the room, the phone beside the bed gave a short vibration. When I checked the screen indifferently, my eyes locked onto the display.
“……”
I stared at the message for a long time, unable to delete it or reply. The four characters “I want to see you” carried enough destructive force to completely erase yesterday’s helplessness and then some.
I didn’t want to act petty. But remembering that suffocating despair from yesterday, I couldn’t easily type out an “okay.”
What were the “things I couldn’t say yesterday”? Could it mean what I was thinking?
After hesitating for a long while, I pressed the keys with heavy fingers.
I sent it as neutrally as possible, but the finger that pressed the send button trembled faintly.
The next day, Saturday, 10:50 a.m. The plaza in front of the amusement park was already packed with weekend crowds. Even though I had arrived earlier than the appointed time, I stood in the shade near the gate adjusting my clothes.
It shouldn’t look like I came out too early.
I deliberately kept an indifferent expression and stared toward the plaza. I had assumed she would be wearing her usual neat knit or a slightly more formal shirt. But at exactly eleven o’clock, a strange murmur began spreading from one corner of the plaza.
Passersby turned their heads in unison toward the same spot, and the dense crowd started parting on both sides like the miracle of Moses.
I looked toward the center of that rift with a puzzled expression. And in that instant, my heart literally seemed to leave my body and return on its own.
“……!”
Through the parted sea of people, Cha Seolah was walking forward in a soft pink dress. The fabric fluttered in the spring breeze. Her shoulders shone translucent beneath the sunlight. And above all, those eyes that rippled with such tender longing they looked ready to spill tears the moment they found me.
If the usual her resembled an unapproachable statue, the Cha Seolah before me now carried a fragile, precarious air that made me feel she would vanish if I didn’t reach out and hold her immediately. The thin dress clung to her in the wind, revealing an unrealistic silhouette, and I could almost hear the sound of passing men’s gazes being seared onto the overwhelming curves beneath.
Before those stares could even annoy me, I was overwhelmed by the sight of her walking only toward me and nearly stumbled backward.
“Gangho……”
As she drew near, a faint scent of shampoo reached me, mixed with a strangely sweet fragrance from her skin. Head slightly lowered, long lashes trembling as she looked up at me. I swallowed hard.
The complicated thoughts I had twisted around in bed last night had already evaporated from my mind long ago.
“……You came?”
The voice I barely squeezed out trembled like an idiot’s. At that moment, Cha Seolah smiled shyly and lightly caught the cuff of my shirt.
“Yeah. I was worried… thinking you might not come.”
The warmth from the tips of her fingers instantly demolished my entire world. I instinctively realized it. Yesterday’s helplessness, the self-reproach—everything had been utterly defeated by this single brief touch. Today, I had the premonition that I would never be able to escape from this woman again.