Han Gayoon, My First Love…
Han Gayoon, my first love…
Han Gayoon.
The first time I met her was fifteen years ago, when I took my very first steps onto a university campus. We were introduced at the freshman orientation held before the semester even began — I an incoming freshman, and she a third-year senior from my department.
Fresh off the ordeal of the college entrance exams and finally setting foot in university life, we new students all wore eyes brimming with curiosity about everything, and because we'd only just left high school behind, we sat gathered neatly and obediently in the lecture hall. There was the customary exploratory skirmish among the freshmen — which schools everyone had come from, whether anyone had retaken the exams — and every face around me sparkled at the novelty of it all.
Then the professors and the seniors opened the lecture hall door and walked in, and there she was. Han Gayoon.
The moment I laid eyes on her, I fell in love — there was no helping it. With her long hair and that fresh, innocent face, she was beautiful by anyone's standards. Her outfit was nothing special, just jeans and a simple sweater, and yet light seemed to gather around her alone.
After the professors' introductions, a greeting from our class president, and the department rundown, we split into small groups under the seniors' guidance. A few seniors were assigned to each group to talk us through university life, course registration, and so on.
And there, as if by fate, Gayoon-noona became our group's mentor. None of the guys in our group said it aloud, but I could feel every one of them quietly rejoicing that she would be ours.
She was a soft-spoken, gracious woman. That innocent face and gentle manner were the very image of the first love every man dreams of. Even our most ridiculous questions she answered one by one, patiently and in detail, with a kind smile.
Watching her like that, I fell for her all the harder.
When the March semester began, I hovered around her constantly — so constantly that the third-year seniors teased me about why I wasn't off with my own classmates instead of lurking around here. Anyone could see I was hopelessly smitten. Having climbed the full tech tree of all-boys middle school into all-boys high school, I had never once managed a proper conversation with a woman, so naturally every move I made was awkward beyond words. Day after day, I conspicuously spilled out the strange knowledge I'd picked up online — how to approach a woman, how to talk to one, how to make her yours — one embarrassing display after another.
And even so, she smiled and graciously took every bit of it in stride.
Looked at objectively, I could hardly have been the first man to approach her the way I did. She was beautiful — the kind of woman who set not only our department but the entire college talking, and even lit up the free board on the school homepage. Countless men besides me were making moves on her, and she fielded the endless stream of advances with practiced ease, turning each one down smoothly, without a hint of friction.
Seniors and classmates alike, watching me court her so transparently, offered their advice — some in earnest, some bordering on mockery: a tree too tall to climb isn't worth gazing at. Give up.
But I didn't give up.
Then one day in April, there in the department lounge, I mustered my courage and asked her to go see a movie with me over the weekend.
Classmates and seniors were all present. Everyone stared as if I'd lost my mind, aghast, and I could tell that even she was flustered at first by my words. Swallowed by the silence that had seized the lounge, I registered for one lurid instant that I was fucked — I was in the middle of calculating the earliest possible date I could volunteer for the army when she smiled and said,
"Sure. Let's do it."
Not just me — everyone in the lounge gaped at her unexpected answer, mouths hanging wide open.
And so I went on my first date with her. In a way unbecoming of a twenty-year-old, so desperate to make a good impression that I put on a suit and bought an enormous bouquet — so enormous that every passerby smirked and muttered as I went by.
When she showed up at the theater and saw the bouquet in my arms, she covered her mouth with her hand and laughed.
"Did you bring this to give to me?"
My face went scarlet, and I bobbed my head in answer.
"Wow~ Out of every bouquet I've ever seen, I think this is the biggest one in the world. I feel like someone special. Thank you, Cheolsoo."
Laughing, she took the bouquet willingly into her arms so that I wouldn't be embarrassed. She was a woman overflowing with consideration.
We watched the movie, ate together, and wandered the streets. Every gesture I made was hopelessly awkward, one clumsy motion after another, but the bare fact that I was on a date with her made my chest feel ready to burst. I thought that if I died right then, I'd have no regrets.
"When should we see our next movie?"
When I had walked her all the way to her studio apartment, she looked at me and was the one to ask first. She was smiling.
And that was how we came to be together.
Gayoon-noona was the most beautiful, most pure woman I had ever seen in my life. Skin as clear and flawless as fresh milk, without a single blemish; long, straight black hair falling to the small of her back. Whenever I caught her smiling as she swept her hair behind her ear, my breath would simply stop.
Word that I was dating Gayoon-noona spread through the department, and then the entire college, in no time. My classmates all reacted like they couldn't believe it.
"What?! No way! Why would a senior date Kim Cheolsoo?!"
Classmates and seniors alike shared that reaction — but congratulations came pouring in all the same. The male seniors especially, huge grins plastered across their faces, all offered me their blessings.
"Whoa~! Kim Cheolsoo! You were that obvious about it, and look at you now... Congratulations! Make the most of it!"
And so, amid everyone's congratulations, our relationship began.
She was my first girlfriend, and Gayoon-noona understood that about me — if anything, she made allowances for it, looking after me with meticulous care.
As a campus couple from the same department, we spent most of our time at school together. I waited outside the lecture hall until her classes ended, and when I had class, she waited for me.
On the fiftieth day of our relationship, I experienced a kiss for the first time in my life. I had walked her home to her studio, and at her front door I worked up the courage to bring my lips to hers. Perhaps she could see how much mine were trembling, because she quietly closed her eyes and accepted the kiss.
The instant her lips touched mine, my heart pounded so loudly I was sure she could hear it too.
It was a sleepless night.
From then on, every time I walked her home, we kissed at her door — though "kiss" might be too grand a word for it; it was closer to a soft peck...
Then, a few days later, I finally slipped my tongue between Gayoon-noona's lips. Hers parted slightly and let me in.
That day I explored her tongue and lips without a thought in my head, and with her held tight against me, we kissed for over thirty minutes outside her door.
And then, about eighty days into our relationship, while kissing Gayoon-noona, I touched her breast. The night before, I had watched a porn video starring an actress who looked quite a lot like her, and I'd gone out that day armed with a great resolution.
As the weather warmed, I made a discovery: her chest was bigger than I'd realized. Through February and the lingering chill of March I had never known it, because back then she always wore loose, baggy sweaters. But spring passed, the days grew warmer little by little, and her clothes grew thinner — and on any day she showed up in something clingy, even just a fitted t-shirt, I spent the entire day losing my mind stealing glances at her chest.
And now, at last, I could touch those breasts of hers!
Kissing her as usual, I gently cupped one of her breasts in my trembling right hand. Gayoon-noona flinched in surprise, but she didn't stop me — eyes closed, she continued the kiss. Her breast overflowed my single hand, brimming past it.
Drunk on that feel, I kneaded Gayoon-noona's breast senselessly. It felt so, so, so good.
The sensation of her breast squishing and molding this way and that inside my hand was enough to drive me mad.
"...It hurts..."
"S... sorry..."
Gayoon-noona had pulled her lips from mine, just barely, to murmur it, and I — startled — blurted out my apology.
Then we kissed again, and I touched her breast once more. This time so gently. So, so gently...
As I caressed her breast like that, I began to feel the area where I guessed her nipple must be slowly stiffening beneath my fingers.
Between my palm and her breast stood a double barrier of t-shirt and bra, but I could feel it, clear as day.
I wanted to slip my hand beneath her clothes and touch Gayoon-noona's bare skin, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Somehow, that final step felt beyond my courage.
After that, the ending of every walk home to her studio was always the same — a deep kiss, and my hands toying with her breasts. And as kneading them became familiar, heated sighs began to seep out from between her lips pressed against mine.
That alone was happiness enough, and I believed we loved each other enough.