A Drink With A Monster
After Sung-ha and I visited the urology clinic near our home, the examination brought welcome news: there was nothing wrong with my sexual function.
The doctor explained that yesterday's excessive activity had simply drained So-jung of all his energy, and the temporary inability to get an erection would pass on its own—all I needed to do was stop worrying. When I heard that, relief washed over me.
Sung-ha had sat beside me in the examination room listening to the same explanation, and she murmured that it was a relief, looking genuinely comforted.
She didn't shed any tears, but the faint redness around her eyes surprised me—it was that obvious.
"Mrs. Lee Soon-ja, how are you feeling? Is your health holding up okay?"
"Aigoo~ thank you for asking every single time."
"Of course, ma'am. Last time you came in you weren't doing so well, so I'm glad you're better now. Still, don't let your guard down—you need to keep taking good care of yourself."
"Ho ho~ What a pretty face you have, young lady, and an even prettier heart."
As I sat waiting on the sofa in the lobby for my prescription, a gentle, soft voice drifted over from beside me.
When I turned my head, I saw a nurse who had stepped away from the reception desk, walking over to an elderly woman in the waiting area and striking up a conversation with her first.
She didn't have the blinding, celebrity-grade looks of Sung-ha or Arin, but there was no question her appearance was lovely.
Her hair was tied back neatly, the part exposing a smooth forehead, and not a single thing about her was out of place—the pale pink nurse's uniform with its crisp white collar gave her an air of quiet dignity and trustworthiness.
Layer on her kind tone of voice, her naturally warm timbre, and her courteous manner, and simply watching her made my heart feel soft and content.
Personally, a kind-hearted, gentle woman was my ideal type.
And if she could also be decisive when the situation called for it, all the better.
By that standard, judging on first impression alone, the nurse in front of me fit my ideal to a T.
"The nurse is really nice, huh, Oppa."
When Sung-ha, sitting across from me, said this out of nowhere, I flinched like a thief with pins and needles in his soles and answered.
"Uh, yeah. I-I guess she is?"
Sung-ha suddenly laced her fingers through mine, then stared silently at the nurse I'd been looking at.
When we got home, irony had it that I ended up alone in the room with Arin.
Sung-ha had headed off to the mart to buy ingredients for foods that were good for stamina.
I shot a sidelong glance at Arin, still kneeling politely in the middle of the room, and reached into the fridge to grab a can of beer before casually asking her.
"Would you... like a can of beer?"
"If you offer it, I will accept."
Arin's polite tone felt distinctly uncomfortable now.
"No, you... you don't have to force yourself."
"I want it!"
"Hmm..."
Left with no choice, I held out the can, and Arin received it reverently with both hands as if it were a treasure chest, even bowing her head.
I let out a short sigh, sat down on the bed, took one long pull of my beer, and worked up the nerve to speak.
"I'll get straight to the point. Why are you doing this to me? Don't even think about playing dumb. There's a reason involving Sung-ha, isn't there?"
"That's..."
Watching her squirm and hem and haw in embarrassment, I decided no answer was coming anytime soon, so I let it go for the moment.
"Then I won't ask why. But first... let's sort out our relationship. How old are you exactly, in human years?"
"...Forty-six."
"Hic—oh. I, I see. Then I'll call you noona... Arin noona. Noona, please speak casually with me too, whether Sung-ha's around or not."
"If you say..."
"Please."
I pushed deliberately hard on that.
Arin hesitated once, then seemed to make up her mind, her whole atmosphere shifting back to the Gangnam woman I'd met the first time.
"Alright."
I felt a little lighter.
"Noona, what exactly do you want with me?"
Arin glanced warily at the front door, as if someone might walk in at any moment, then stretched out her kneeling legs and leaned against the wall as she spoke.
"I still can't tell you why, but I want to stay by your side. That said, I don't plan on staying in this house. Neither I nor you would be comfortable with it, and ne... Sung-ha wouldn't like it either. When you move somewhere new, Oppa, I'll get a place nearby and just linger around like a neighbor."
Oppa...?
She had agreed to speak casually, and she was older than me, but it seemed to slip out of her like a verbal habit.
It wasn't worth calling out, so I let it pass and asked.
"Hmm... that much is fine, but... then what's your reason for wanting to be around me?"
Arin's lips twitched once as she searched for the words, then she started with her first, bashful attempt.
"Frie..."
"...Fri?"
She seemed to feel some inexplicable shame, her face flushing bright red as she averted her gaze and struggled on. When she couldn't string the words together for a while, I prodded her for the rest.
"I want to... be your... friend..."
...What?
"Sorry, my hearing's been a little off lately... did you just say 'friend'?"
It was the first confession like this I'd heard since elementary school, so it was a fairly fresh shock.
Normally friendships just form naturally, don't they? People don't usually come right out and announce it like this...
"You heard me right. I want us to be friends..."
Maybe she knew how it sounded—Arin still couldn't meet my eyes, visibly embarrassed.
No... why are YOU the one blushing when you're the one who confessed? I'm the one who should be flustered and embarrassed here...
"Why? Is this... also something to do with Sung-ha?"
"...More or less."
"Then don't force yourself into a friendship. Just being casual acquaintances is fine too, isn't it?"
No matter how young she looked on the outside, being friends with a being more than ten years my senior was a lot to take on.
On top of that, unlike Sung-ha, the being in front of me was still, without question, something that ate humans.
"Th-that's... I mean... uuuuugh... just be my friend!"
Maybe she had her reasons, but when Arin started pushing unreasonably, I took another long pull of beer and replied.
"Ahh... friend, acquaintance, the point is you want to keep seeing my face, right? Then I have a condition."
"What is it?"
"I can't exactly tell you not to eat humans at this point... but instead, I'd like you not to eat any humans who haven't become adults. Like last time."
I knew it.
I knew I was practicing hypocrisy so vile it made my skin crawl.
And yet I openly acknowledged my own selfishness and set my condition anyway.
"Well, that much is... fine. Alright."
Tk.
Now that things were settled and she seemed reassured, Arin cracked her beer can open and gulped it down refreshingly.
Come to think of it, it had been an incredibly long time since I'd sat across from someone and had a drink like this.
Back when I lived in the countryside, there'd been one high school friend, and aside from him, I hadn't had anyone around worth sharing a drink with.
I'd had light drinks in front of Sung-ha a few times, but she never seemed all that interested, so I stopped offering.
Of course, if I wanted it, Sung-ha would drink with me anytime, anywhere—but it felt like I'd be forcing her, and that wouldn't sit right with my conscience.
"Do you like drinking?"
"I suppose?"
"That reminds me—do you actually get drunk when you drink?"
There really was a lot I was curious about when it came to monsters and their kind.
She'd answer without hesitation if I asked a monster directly, but somehow it felt like too much of a hurdle to ask so bluntly.
So even being lovers doesn't mean you can bare everything to each other, huh...
"Whether it's booze or medicine, it hits us the same as anyone—our bodies are human to begin with. The only real difference is that we can clear a drug or a buzz out of our system whenever we want. Honestly, that's the biggest difference. Phones and the younger ones get drunk on that first taste of it, obsessed at first, but as time goes on and their ability to regulate it strengthens, they go numb to it and eventually just stop. Think about it, Oppa—if you could strip away the buzz any time you wanted, would you even bother drinking?"
Slosh, slosh...
When Arin swirled her wrist, the remaining contents of the can sloshed along with it.
"Funny—I feel like if I could sober up whenever I wanted, I'd drink even more. Guess that's not how it works for you. So why do you drink, Noona?"
"It's like a habit. Humans can't live on rice alone—some of it's just enjoying it for its own sake... Brrap."
Arin actually let out a burp like a genuinely drunk person, then asked with a flushed smile.
"Got anything stronger, Oppa?"
"...Should I get the soju?"
"Do it."
She looked like the type to nurse whiskey or wine, but unexpectedly, she didn't seem picky at all.
I took the single bottle of soju from the fridge along with a few of the side dishes Sung-ha had made and set them on the table.
Honestly, I couldn't deny that I was feeling a little giddy myself, drinking with company for the first time in ages.
"Ahh... this is the stuff."
"Heh, it does taste good—maybe because it's been so long."
As we drained glass after glass together, we both wore the same faintly flushed expressions.
Drinking together has a way of opening people up, turning strangers into friends in a single evening—and this was exactly that kind of mood.
"You know, thank you."
Arin suddenly said it with a tipsy grin, her eyes slightly softened.
"For what?"
"For not throwing me away in that park. For saving me. Thanks, Oppa~"
"Ah, well... I couldn't exactly just leave you there, could I?"
When I brushed it off awkwardly, Arin snorted a laugh.
"You really are... a suuuuuch a good human. Is that why the Queen likes you?"
"...The Queen?"
"Eep—ch-cheers!"
When I echoed the word back, Arin jolted, clapped a hand over her mouth, and then abruptly shoved her glass toward me as if to paper over the slip.
"Is Sung-ha... sort of... famous, among her own kind?"
I asked casually as our glasses clinked.
"W-well..."
Arin avoided my gaze, the corners of her mouth twitching, before she answered.
"But she's... incredibly strong. You should know that much, Oppa. How strong? If she ever truly set her mind to it, destroying this world would be no joke—no exaggeration at all."
"...Hic."
So everything she'd said before really hadn't been a joke...
Once again, Sung-ha's sheer scale settled over my eyes like a fresh weight.
"That's why your life carries so much responsibility... If you ever died, Oppa, she might go berserk and end the world?"
"C'mon..."
Just as I was about to dismiss it as flattery, Arin's expression hardened in an instant.
"I'm not kidding. Take this seriously."
"Right...?"
I still found it hard to believe, but I did know Sung-ha loved me, so I couldn't flatly deny it.
If anything, the reverse was true—I thought that if Sung-ha ever died, I'd be utterly devastated too.
"So don't die. ...Is your cock holding up? Treasure it. If that thing stops working... that's when the Earth actually ends."
She delivered it in a chillingly grave voice, and I had no idea how to react.
Granted, Sung-ha's staple food was my semen, but couldn't she just go back to eating humans if it came to that?
Hmm... tricky.
Still, with the fate of the planet apparently riding on my one cock, the weight on my chest grew almost unbearable, and I resolved to cherish So-jung even more from now on.
"With that in mind—cheers!"
All of the earlier heaviness vanished without a trace. Watching Arin thrust out her soju glass, I snorted a laugh.
For a fleeting moment, the thought crossed my mind that maybe, just maybe, I really could become friends with this monster of a woman.