No Relations Before Marriage
Having relations before marriage just isn't right.
Leaving behind the awkward atmosphere that had settled after our pointless bickering over what to call each other, we arrived at a conveyor-belt sushi place not far from my house.
It was a clean little restaurant that hadn't been open long, but the hour was still early for a meal, and there wasn't another customer in sight.
A cheerful little bell chimed as we pushed open the door, and a staff member who'd been busily wiping down tables came over to greet us.
"Just the two of you?"
"Yes. Two."
"Then I'll show you to a two-seater over this way."
We followed the employee to our seats. Since they'd only just opened for the day, the rail still had quite a few empty gaps between the plates.
When the staff member told us to feel free to ask for anything we wanted, we gave a light nod, and I reached for the soy sauce bottle and the small dipping dishes without thinking.
While I poured soy sauce into dishes for the two of us, Jihoo pulled out a pair of chopsticks with easy familiarity and set them down in front of me.
After twenty years of knowing each other, it had become second nature—whenever we went out to eat, we prepared things for each other without a word. We knew each other's habits and preferences inside and out by now, so adjusting for the other's tastes wasn't any trouble at all.
"Want me to put in more wasabi?"
"I'll add more later if I need it once I start eating."
I pushed a dish loaded with soy sauce and wasabi over to Jihoo's side, then added just a tiny dab of wasabi to my own.
"I think this every time, but with that little bit, can you even taste it?"
"Any more and I can't eat it."
I could handle spicy food just fine. Wasabi, for some reason, was the one thing I couldn't deal with.
"Your body's changed. Maybe your tastes have too?"
"…You think so?"
"Just try it once. You never know."
Saying that, he plucked a plate of flounder sushi off the rail, topped it with wasabi, and held it out to me.
Ordinarily I never would have touched it. But the thought that my palate might actually have changed made me pick up the sushi he'd offered with my chopsticks.
I squeezed my eyes shut and shoved the whole thing into my mouth.
With every chew, a gentle sweetness and acidity bloomed, and the clean, mild flavor of the flounder was just starting to spread across my tongue when—
"Ai… hngh…."
A sharp, nose-stinging heat surged up and shoved every other taste clean out of the way.
I reflexively parted my lips and scrambled to fill my cup with water, downing it in one go.
Even after drinking, my sinuses still burned, and tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.
"Spicy…."
"That's honestly amazing. Why is it only wasabi you can't handle?"
Jihoo watched my reaction like it was the most fascinating thing in the world, then piled a generous mound of wasabi onto the remaining flounder sushi and pushed it into his own mouth.
"You're seriously fine eating it like that?"
"Yeah. You need at least this much for the flavor to come thr—"
"Did you bite a bone or something? Why'd you just stop talking?"
Jihoo had gone completely still, staring blankly at me as I dabbed away the tears that had leaked out with a napkin.
His weird behavior made me ask if something was wrong with the sushi he was eating, but all he did was shake his head with a dazed look on his face.
"Then why are you staring at me like that?"
"No… I just thought you had something on your face."
His answer was less than convincing, but I didn't make much of it and reached for a plate passing by on the rail.
I grabbed a dish of egg sushi—bright yellow tamagoyaki wrapped in nori—and popped one into my mouth.
"S-so why do you always start with the egg sushi, anyway?"
"What…? I dunno. It just feels incomplete if I don't eat this one first."
It was a strange question, like he was trying to change the subject, but I didn't see any reason to call him on it, so I answered honestly.
If I didn't start with the egg sushi, the whole meal felt vaguely off. I'd kept doing it until it hardened into a habit—not much of an explanation, really.
"And egg is just good."
If I had to give a real reason, it was probably because I liked eggs a lot. The soft, subtly sweet flavor of Japanese-style rolled omelet on sushi had a charm all its own, different from the Korean kind.
We kept pushing sushi into our mouths between the usual nothing-conversations, and then the bell chimed behind me as the door opened again.
"Table for two."
"Yes. I'll show you to a seat over that way."
"Let's go."
I turned toward the sound. A young man and woman who looked a little younger than us were being led in by the staff.
The two of them had the easy, warm air of a couple, and I snuck a look at their backs as they followed the employee toward a seat further inside.
"Oh… they're so fresh. Right?"
"What is?"
"That couple that just came in. Heh… I'm jealous. I always wanted to try dating too."
I'd never been in a relationship, but I'd always kind of longed for one. Now that I'd ended up like this, though, dating felt completely out of reach going forward.
"Yeah? When you actually date, nothing much changes."
"Hey. Easy for someone who's actually dated to say."
"I wouldn't know. What do you want from me?"
Coming from a guy I'd personally watched go through at least three relationships, it just sounded like a flex.
"There's a limit to how hard you can flex. I'll never even dream of dating my ideal type now."
"Ideal type?"
"Yeah! My ideal type was a cute girl shorter than me who'd look up at me!"
Was there even a woman in the world who'd look up at me now that I'd gotten this small? And even if there were, could I really see her as someone to date?
A bleak feeling settled over me. I propped my chin in my hand and let out a small sigh.
"Ideal type…."
But the reaction from the dating veteran sitting across from me—Lee Jihoo, Esq.—was strange.
He murmured the words ideal type and stared blankly into space, lost in thought.
"Hey. What's with you?"
"No, I was just thinking it over carefully. Nothing really comes to mind."
"Are you messing with me right now? You've dated three times. And you're saying you don't have an ideal type?"
Just the girlfriends I could remember.
One who had that refined, well-bred air about her.
One whose figure was so impressive I'd genuinely worried about her shoulders.
One so tall and willowy she could have been a model, nearly eye-level with Jihoo.
There were three of them. So what did he mean, he didn't know his type?
"Don't you at least like taller girls? Every girlfriend you've had was like that."
"Not really…. Honestly, they all just kept pestering me to go out, so I went along with it."
"What?"
What was he even saying? Went along with it…?
"Every time I turned them down, they'd swear things would be different once we were actually dating. So I accepted, just to test it."
"Then… that elegant-looking one…?"
"I took her to your mom's shop, and she badmouthed it—said what kind of date spot was some backwater place like that. So I broke up with her. We met maybe three times?"
"Th-then the one with the… chest. I mean, the one who came to meet me separately and said hello?"
His words were making my head go a little fuzzy.
"She started spouting nonsense about how I shouldn't hang around someone who didn't match my standing. So I broke up with her. We lasted about a week."
"…Then the tall one we ran into on Christmas Eve?"
"The second you stepped away to give us space, she started groping my thigh. So I broke up with her. She'd only asked me out the day before. So… about one day."
"That's all of them…?"
"Those three were it. After that, I just never felt the need to date."
In his early twenties he'd casually mention starting a new relationship, and then before I knew it he'd shrug and say they'd drifted apart. I'd figured a popular guy had just turned into a player.
Hearing the actual stories, though, his dating history was a disaster that fell apart in a matter of days.
"…Then wait. Does that mean you've never done it? You're a virgin?"
"That's right."
"I can't believe this."
And on top of everything, zero experience.
With that face and that kind of money, how had he never once…? It wasn't like he'd never dated at all, the way I hadn't.
"Why, though?"
"That's something you do with someone you like."
"I'm losing my mind. Th-then why did you even go out with them?!"
"I already told you. Even when I said I wasn't interested, they kept swearing it'd be different once we dated. So I said yes on the off chance they were right."
I felt bad for all the times I'd cursed him out in my head as a womanizing chaebol playboy back when we'd just become adults.
In twenty years of knowing him, it had never once crossed my mind that he might be this pure.
"And having relations before marriage just isn't right."
Good lord…. I never thought I'd hear the words saving yourself for marriage come out of that dark-haired guy's mouth.
My head was spinning because of him, but looking at Jihoo's completely clueless face, a helpless little laugh slipped out on its own.
"Wow…. So there was never a single girl who caught your eye?"
"……."
Jihoo sank into thought at my question, then slowly shook his head.
"Not really."
Then, as if nothing had happened, he plucked a sushi plate off the rail and pushed it straight into his mouth.
"Enough useless talk. Let's just eat."
"…Yeah. Let's."
Just a little—I thought I was starting to understand why Jihoo's mother was so fixated on me.
Same as always, we each paid for what we'd eaten and stepped out of the restaurant.
"You could just swipe the card Dad gave you."
"Absolutely not."
It was a card meant for exactly this kind of small everyday spending, and yet I'd shoved it so deep into my wallet you could barely see it and had no intention of ever taking it out.
Dad was probably checking his phone every day, wondering when a transaction text would finally come through. Unfortunately for him, that text didn't look like it was arriving anytime soon.
"Alright, I'm heading home from here. Drive safe."
"I'll drop you off on the way. Just get in."
"What are you talking about? It's the opposite direction. I can walk it in no time."
Most people would have bent over backwards to hitch a ride even if it was the wrong way.
"Fine. Say hi to your mom for me."
"You're going to call her yourself later anyway, after saying that."
"True."
"Haa. I'm going."
Miri lifted a hand in a light wave, turned, and walked off at an unhurried pace. From behind, that figure looked so small.
I watched until the distance between us had grown a little, then climbed into the car, let out a breath, and dropped my forehead against the steering wheel.
"Crazy bastard."
The muttered words rang hollow in the empty car.
"Insane bastard."
When Miri had asked if there was anyone who'd ever caught my eye, the face that had surfaced without thinking wouldn't leave my head.
…Don't want to. Don't go.
The face of a girl with emerald hair, tears streaming endlessly from both eyes, kept flickering in front of me.
Spicy….
The reason I hadn't been able to look away from that face—tears welling up over a bit of wasabi—was probably because of the afterimage of Miri that had burned itself so vividly into my mind yesterday.
"Haa…. You absolute lunatic. What is wrong with you."
I couldn't begin to understand it myself.
Why the image of my friend crying wouldn't leave my head.
Why the sight of that face with just a hint of tears had made the back of my neck burn.
I had no idea at all.