A Shift in Consciousness
— Ding-dong.
— Riiing. Riiing. Riiing.
"Ugh.. Suho, I think the phone's ringing.."
Meaning to wake him, I patted the bed with my eyes still shut, feeling around for Suho — but he wasn't there.
Where did he go..? Did he leave for work already..??
— Ding-dong.
"Who on earth it is, this early in the morning...."
Deciding I should at least see who it was, I pushed myself upright and turned my gaze toward the door. The clock read 10:55.
"Seriously... who rings a person's bell at this hour.."
My body, already sinking back toward the mattress, popped upright like a roly-poly toy that refuses to stay down.
"Huh!? 10:55!?"
By the rhythms of my usual life, that still counted as the crack of dawn. Today, however, was different.
"Hello??"
I dashed toward the intercom, answering the call as I went, and a stranger's voice came through the receiver.
"Ah.. hello. This is Ilkea customer service. We've arrived with your delivery, but there was no answer at your door."
"Oh! I'm so sorry — I'll open up right away!!"
— Ring-ring.
"Ah, hello there. Thankfully you were home."
"Yes, I'm so sorry. I had some things to take care of.. hoho.."
At the cost of considerable effort, I covered — with an expression of pure disgust — a mouth that surely bore the traces of overnight drool, and so spared the men the full sight of my dishevelment. Though the eye gunk I wouldn't discover until I washed my face later was crusted thick across both eyes, on display for them exactly as it was...
Whether because there was simply a lot of it or because the furniture was so bulky, two men came inside, and behind them I could see the mountain of goods stacked high.
Do they assemble it for you? Or, since this is a high-rise, do they haul everything up by elevator and put it together here...?
Not that any of it mattered.
With a frail body that couldn't even lift a few kilos of dead weight, I had zero confidence in my ability to assemble furniture this size armed with nothing but a single Phillips-head screwdriver. Sure, I'd built plenty of flat-pack pieces in my day — but my wrists, still throbbing at the memory, were screaming at me that this was absolutely out of the question.
"This room here... ah, I'm sorry. One moment, please."
Gripping the doorknob tight, trembling, I eased the door open slowly.
Please let Suho have cleaned it.. no, hold on — why didn't he wake me up, huh?
I was the one who'd overslept, but that didn't stop me from blaming poor Suho as I opened the door.
I poked my head in for a look around. The boxes of my books were neatly arranged in one corner, and thankfully the floor and walls had been wiped down without a speck of dust left.
So he did get up early, huh..? And here I am, a total failure of a big brother.
"Ah, come on in. Please start with this room."
There was plenty of space in the living room for the dining table even without moving the bed — but the bed had to go first. The dining table and the bed. Some combinations were simply never meant to coexist.
"How would you like everything arranged?"
The placement of the desk — the spot where I would spend more hours than anywhere else in this house — mattered. Sure, everything I wrote would end up uploaded for Suho to read, but I had no intention of letting him watch over my shoulder while I wrote it. All the more not, given how much of my catalog was adult-rated.
"Set the desk with its back to the window, over here, please.."
"Of course."
"The chair goes between the desk and the window.. yes, yes, just set it there and I'll fine-tune it myself."
"And the vanity, the storage cabinet, and the dining table — where would you like those?"
The rest, then..
It seemed the hour had come to finally face the bed I'd been putting off.
"Vanity against this wall.. cabinet over here.. ah, and the dining table will be staying in the living room. Also, I'm so sorry, but would you be able to move the bed from the living room into this room..?"
"No trouble at all. We'll move the bed first, then set up the rest of the furniture."
"Thank you so much!"
And I meant it, from the bottom of my heart. Heaven only knew how much groaning and straining it would take for Suho and me to maneuver a bed that size between the two of us.
The worker separated the frame from the mattress, propped the mattress upright against the wall, hefted the frame, and asked me:
"Where would you like the bed?"
"How about over there, by the window?"
Nobody knew better than I did how miserable it is to be jolted awake by the morning sun when you've never once been a morning person. But I wasn't living alone anymore.
Making Suho breakfast, seeing him off at the door — those were a roommate's duties from here on out. At the very least, there would be no repeat of today's blunder.
Waking up side by side in the morning sun, cooing at each other half-asleep — that wouldn't be so terrible, either.
Contract or no contract, staring at the wreckage of food that had come out of that fridge had stirred up a lot in me. For as long as I lived with him, at the very least, I intended to fix his habits.
His eating. His sense of money. His daily rhythms.
If only because it would make life easier on the one living with him. Namely, me.
Feed him breakfast, teach him to cook so he could set his own plate — and someday, just like that, I'd have myself a standing source of free breakfast. I couldn't wait to see how that first fried rice of his — basically a lump of salt with an ocean mixed in — would evolve.
Raising Lee Suho into a man who could fend for himself — who'd be just fine even left completely alone — was the hidden final objective of my contract.
"We've set it up by the window for now — how does that look?"
"One moment.."
— Floomp.
I lay back on the bed for a trial run. The light was a touch dazzling, but not enough to be a dealbreaker. I'd be putting up blinds on that window anyway, so it hardly mattered.
The old bed must have been off-level, because this one didn't give me that faint sensation of sliding to one side.
Ah.. I could go for one more nap just like this..
It was so soft and cozy that, had the workers not been standing right there, I might have been out cold again on the spot.
"Looks good, then. Shall we place the vanity and the cabinet next, or start on the dining table?"
"Factoring in the carrying and the assembly, it's probably better to save the table for last. Would that be alright?"
The professionals knew their business. No sense in me hovering and micromanaging every little thing.
"Ah — yes. Let's do it that way, please. Vanity against that wall there, and the cabinet right beside it."
"Of course. One moment, please."
Their hands kept moving at the same brisk clip, screwing the furniture together clack-clack, and in the short time I'd spent lost in thought, everything stood exactly where I'd pictured it.
"All finished."
"Ah, thank you for your hard work. Here, take these for the road."
I fished the drinks left over from bribing the security guard out of the fridge and pressed them on the weary delivery men.
On both of them, the veins slowly standing out along their forearms as they assembled the furniture, the sweat beading fine from their faces down to the napes of their necks — it was, I noticed, a rather pleasant sight.
"Thank you. We'll be on our way, then."
"Yes~ get home safe!"
Something about that was off.
I couldn't have said what, but an odd, uneasy feeling had settled over me. A strange feeling — the first stirrings of something I had never once felt in my life.
Was it just my imagination..?
Brushing the unease aside, I saw the workers out, and when I glanced back from the doorway, the clock pointing to 11:50 seemed to be hurrying me along.
Grrrowl—
That clock and my belly clock both keep time like a blade, huh..
Clutching my empty stomach, I was weighing whether to go find lunch when worry for Suho — who hadn't eaten a single bite of breakfast — won out, and I dialed his number.
"Yeji-noona, please go ahead and take your lunch break now."
"Yes, of course. And the CEO?"
"He's thinking he'll just grab whatever, same as usual. There's that sandwich he had picked up this morning, too."
Yeji had been wondering what was with the CEO today — just yesterday he'd been so happy he could die, and now he was sulking again — but she hardly needed to read his moods.
Ah. Looks like Unnie worked her magic on him again this morning.
His face was glum, sure, but there'd been no orders for an investigation, no corrective measures of any kind.
Song Gaon had, without a doubt, rattled Lee Suho's psyche yet again.
Yesterday, too — Song Gaon, diving headfirst into the passenger seat in search of her shoe, had spared not one thought for her skirt.
Waist bent deep, hips hoisted high — what other reason could there possibly have been for the CEO's Adam's apple to bob without a moment's rest?
She could be excused for it; the body was still new to her. But then, Lee Suho wasn't used to it either.
The CEO snapping the car door shut in shock, and Lee Suho staring at Song Gaon's legs with his cheeks scarlet — she'd watched the whole spectacle from right beside them, so she could be certain.
One of them turns prickly the moment he's embarrassed, and the other has no idea what she's even doing..
A match made in heaven, if ever there was one.
All it did was give the bystander an aneurysm, that was all.
— Riiing. Buzz, buzz.
"Hello."
"Suho! How could you not eat anything this morning?"
Hearing Song Gaon's voice come through the receiver, bright and full of life even across the line, Han Yeji let slip a snort of laughter.
Because at that greeting — that yeoboseyo — a smile had bloomed across his face.
Don't tell me he reacted to the yeobo in yeoboseyo — the "honey" tucked inside her "hello"...
The sulking demon king ascended to heaven.
Han Yeji, half-tempted to eavesdrop a little longer on the dishonest young demon king's call with her, pulled herself together.
No sense getting tangled up in that. Go eat, quickly.
She stole one last glance at the sulky Lee Suho, gave a small nod, and slipped quietly out of the CEO's office. Lingering in a scene like that would only ever mean more work for her.
"It's already noon, Noona. What are you talking about?"
Lee Suho followed Yeji's retreating figure with his eyes, then wiped her from his mind in the next instant. What mattered now wasn't Yeji — it was our Noona.
"Ah, sorry! I got up a while ago — took delivery of everything we ordered yesterday and got it all put away, too!"
Had she really been up that long? There was nothing left of the sleep-thick voice that had murmured against him that morning, arms wound tight around him.
She must still be tired. Right. And yet...
"Hoo.."
Suho let the phone drift a little ways from his ear, and his sigh filled the CEO's office from wall to wall.
Early that morning, Lee Suho — intending only to wake Song Gaon so he could clean her room — had ended up taken prisoner in her embrace. Perhaps the fatigue of her transformation still clung to her body: his hand caught fast in her grip, Noona had nuzzled her cheek against him, and the feel of her skin was vivid still.
Song Gaon had hugged him tight as a child clutching a beloved plush toy, and her scent lingered in his nose even now. She claimed to hate peaches — so why, of all things, was her body wash peach-scented? The sweet fragrance still hung faint in the air.
Brow creasing faintly, he grumbled down the line at her — at her, who seemed to remember none of it:
"I'm eating lunch on my own. Heading home now would be awkward anyway."
"Okay. So I'm eating all by myself, then~?"
Song Gaon was simple. She seemed simple the way a person striving to be simple does — as if simplicity itself were a compulsion.
How had someone like that ever written the novels she'd written?
I'm looking forward to finding out.
The world Noona had seen. The world Noona had drawn. Now, all of it lay in the palm of his hand.
"Oh — Noona, your laptop's on the desk."
"You brought it home for me? Thanks. I was just debating whether I'd have to haul myself all the way to your office.."
"It's on the little desk by the front door — find it and use it. And I'm busy today."
"Oh, you are? Work hard, then."
"Yeah. Hanging up."
— Beep.