Togetherness (4)
The sunlight creeping through the window reflected sharply on the monitor, stinging my eyes like needles.
I turned back and saw the sun hurrying out of the office beyond the window.
The workshop was filled only with the clacking of the keyboard and Song Suho’s quiet laugh as he smiled while watching the monitor opposite me. Time had slipped away without me noticing.
My fingers danced across the keys, fueled by the courage of Suho’s soft laughter, and the keyboard symphony ended the concert with resounding success.
The protagonists, perhaps spurred by this background music, ended up committing a sin in the middle of their forest camping.
I had promised myself not to write such scenes while Suho was right in front of me, yet I couldn’t resist.
In the novel, the male and female leads were married.
There was no problem with writing the act itself.
Perhaps the one who lost himself to the ecstasy of the keyboard sounds wasn’t the male lead or the female lead, but me.
Even as I kept writing such acts, I still glanced at Suho’s eyes.
The worry about whether this story was okay stemmed from the little guy sitting across from me.
They were camping in the forest, drunk on the atmosphere, and the protagonists became one.
The guy sitting across from me smiled even brighter than the sunlight shining on my back as he watched the monitor and me.
When I saw his expression—once damp with sweat, now brightly laughing—I felt a strange sense of satisfaction.
“I think I should wrap this up for today.”
The monitor was so bright I had to squint; the sun was hanging in the sky.
The guy who had been yelling “I’m dying!” was already traveling far into the night, and he wouldn’t return until tomorrow morning.
“Unnie.”
“Yeah?”
“How many episodes have I written so far?”
“You’ll know after I do a final check… about fifty-five?”
I had been able to write five more episodes than the total accumulated so far.
It was a lot for a single day.
But since this was a remake with a solid foundation, I decided it wasn’t excessive.
‘Back when I was really writing, I used to do five episodes a day.’
Of course, that was when I was young and full of passion. Now my body ached everywhere.
Even though I felt healthier after becoming a woman, the mysterious state of my body since morning made me feel irritable for no reason.
The later part of the novel I had cut off hastily to blame on fatigue was meant to show a deeper married life.
That was why I couldn’t continue writing such content in front of Suho.
Even if he sent me a lewd smile, the guy was still legally a minor.
One month wasn’t that long, but it wasn’t nothing.
‘Even though I had to write the scene where they become one in the beginning…’
“Hey. Calm down.”
“Provocative, aren’t you?”
The guy with the lewd smile lifted only one corner of his mouth and put on the smile of a new crescent moon that hadn’t even risen yet.
His gentle smile was like moonlight, but to me who knew his lewdness it was like scorching midday sun.
“You’re being provocative by saying that to me all the time… you’re trying to make me want to smack you.”
“Aigoo.”
I almost said “Bae” without meaning to.
Even after becoming a woman, I was still an old soul, it seemed.
“Speaking of which, Suho… did you do the dishes after lunch?”
“Ah… ah…”
Of course not.
He had only been glued to me in the workshop.
“I’ll shower first and go to the bedroom. You go do the dishes, shower, and sleep. I’m going to sleep first.”
I turned off the computer and left the workshop without waiting for Suho’s answer.
The moment I tried to speak to him, I feared I might fall into some trap.
* * *
The warm water made my mind hazy.
My relaxed body met the soft bed and seemed ready to slip into a dream at any moment.
‘That’s why we need expensive beds.’
*Tap, tap.*
The moment I thought I was about to fall asleep, the dull sound woke me up.
I didn’t need to open my eyes to know.
‘He’s doing that on purpose, isn’t he?’
Suho used to walk as quietly as if he lived in a poorly soundproofed apartment full of neighbors.
But right now he was nothing like that.
“Unnie. Sleeping?”
“I’m sleeping… A!”
I shouldn’t have answered, but with my mind somewhere else I answered without thinking.
“What is it…? Do you realize you’re being a cute idiot all by yourself and then another idiot?”
“Ah, really. What should I do with a cute unnie like this?”
“Shut up.”
The guy who didn’t answer my scolding flopped onto the bed as if he were the tyrant of the mattress.
“Unnie.”
“Yeah?”
I turned my head toward the sound and saw him still staring at me fixedly.
‘Don’t you get tired of staring at me all day?’
“It’s because I like it when we shower together.”
“Who showers together? We definitely showered separately.”
“Even if I don’t care, a healthy man and woman showering together and then lying in bed is a fact.”
“You don’t know, but I don’t know if I’m healthy yet.”
I had been planning to get a checkup for quite some time.
I had said I’d do it tomorrow, but tomorrow was my first day at work.
“So you had a checkup, right?”
“Yeah. But I start work tomorrow, right?”
“I work morning and afternoon half-day.”
“You work too sloppily, don’t you?”
“So what? If I rest, the secretary team rests together. And if I go, unnie, you don’t have to pay my checkup fee, right?”
Suho had a card sharpened sharper than a knife in this capitalist society.
‘There’s not a single cute thing about him.’
The guy trying to drag me into the depths of luxury with the power of capital was no different from a sweet-tongued devil.
“Sigh. Fine. But why are you still staring at me?”
He had thought for a long time.
He had never looked at me except when glancing at the monitor for a second and when eating lunch and picking up side dishes or rice.
“Because I like it.”
“I don’t think I’m very likeable.”
He wasn’t the type who wouldn’t say no if told not to, and tomorrow was busy, so I turned away and lay on my back.
Since he wasn’t visible, I felt refreshed inside but uneasy because I didn’t know what he might be doing behind me.
‘If only I’d put an air mattress in the workshop…’
“Eh?”
“Why are you surprised?”
Suho hugged me from behind like he was embracing my stomach and asked me directly in a whisper as if he had decided on it.
“If it were you, wouldn’t you be surprised if someone suddenly hugged you from behind?”
“Ah. What? I thought you loved back hugs, unnie.”
“How on earth did that strange logic come out?”
“You only look back when I’m around.”
There was also the fact that the embarrassed expression he made while facing me was a burden, and when our eyes met I couldn’t breathe and felt suffocated.
Even so, the guy seemed to be interpreting it as a good signal.
It felt strangely bad, as if I were jumping up and down saying Suho’s actions were good.
I decided to firmly warn him and turned around still in his arms. Suho leaned in close to my face as if he had been waiting.
“Hey. Stop messing around. There’s a lot to do tomorrow!”
“Since I’m doing it together, there’s no problem.”
Suho was about to kiss me, so I turned away again.
I really didn’t need to look at him.
“Ugh!”
“Unnie.”
“Ah, why! I’m really going to sleep.”
Suho pulled me closer by grabbing the hand that was hugging me and whispered from behind.
“Give me a dream. A lewd dream.”
“Are you not sleeping?”
“I’m fine with that.”
I felt bone-deep that I could never win with words and tightly closed my eyes.
Having a quiet mouth hurt more than having a loud one.
I didn’t need to react to every single thing Suho did.
If I answered everything, he would enjoy it more.
“I don’t like being too proactive, unnie?”
“Um…”
I couldn’t answer exactly.
Since Suho confessed to me, his unrestrained behavior had been quite burdensome.
But if I asked whether I disliked it that much, well…
‘Is it because I’ve never been courted this actively…’
There were times when I felt good.
Except for how over-the-top it was, someone liking me and expressing it was surprisingly heartwarming.
“It’s burdensome.”
“I see. I’ll tone it down a bit.”
I didn’t need to open my eyes because I was facing away.
I didn’t need to answer with words either.
Suho was pressed right up against me.
I nodded and answered his words, then once more tried to summon the dream elves.
Just as my vision grew hazy, a forgotten thought suddenly resurfaced.
“Hey. By the way, I didn’t receive the handover, did I?”
I shot up and twisted my upper body to look down at Suho.
Suho, who was still hugging me, answered without getting up as if it were nothing.
“Everything that needs handover is already sorted by me, and I backed up the company computer you’ll be using too.”
“Who?”
“Yeji unnie.”
“When did you contact her?”
“When you were writing the long forest scene.”
“…”
The bluntness of Suho’s expression drained all my strength.
I lay back down and sighed.
He really had nothing like my heart at all.
‘How is everything with me passing through every single touch of Lee Suho’s…’
I might simply have no room in my heart, or I might have been paying too much attention.
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